Release Date:
08/04/2000
Way back when Maxim Online did its Rockin Summer Trailers feature, we had some high hopes for the current crop of summer movies. Sadly, most of them tanked harder than the Portland Trail Blazers. But none disappointed us as thoroughly as Paul Verhoevens Hollow Man. It had potential: The director who brought us some of the most entertainingly cheesy movies in recent memory (Starship Troopers, Showgirls, and Total Recall) tackling the invisible man thing. It had the potential to be creepy, fun, and loaded with gratuitous nudity. What could go wrong? Well, everything.
Hollow Man has some of the most eye-popping visual effects youve ever seen, not to mention um actually, thats all there is. A team of elite research scientists led by Kevin Bacon experiment with invisibility. (Note to Hollywood: Can we please stop casting Elizabeth Shue as a scientist? She makes Denise Richards in The World is Not Enough look like Madame Curie.) Kevin goes under and cant come back, so he goes nutzo and starts raping and killing, blah, blah, blah. Hollow Man delivers hackneyed B-movie cliches and no thrills whatsoever. Even the nudity (brief as it is) comes across as trite and forced, and the violence is mean-spirited and downright nasty. Worse, the holes in the logic are too big to ignore. (Can you really fix a gaping wound with duct tape? And why the hell does Bacon keep escaping from the lab only to come right back?!) And the action is almost entirely confined to the lab set. But, hey, at least now Kevin Bacon is only one degree away from the Adventures in Babysitting kids.
Hollow Man has some of the most eye-popping visual effects youve ever seen, not to mention um actually, thats all there is. A team of elite research scientists led by Kevin Bacon experiment with invisibility. (Note to Hollywood: Can we please stop casting Elizabeth Shue as a scientist? She makes Denise Richards in The World is Not Enough look like Madame Curie.) Kevin goes under and cant come back, so he goes nutzo and starts raping and killing, blah, blah, blah. Hollow Man delivers hackneyed B-movie cliches and no thrills whatsoever. Even the nudity (brief as it is) comes across as trite and forced, and the violence is mean-spirited and downright nasty. Worse, the holes in the logic are too big to ignore. (Can you really fix a gaping wound with duct tape? And why the hell does Bacon keep escaping from the lab only to come right back?!) And the action is almost entirely confined to the lab set. But, hey, at least now Kevin Bacon is only one degree away from the Adventures in Babysitting kids.