HOLLOW MAN. Great and visually spectacular science fiction

You won’t convince me that you don’t remember the “bugs” from Starship Troopers! That supposedly lowbrow cinema with a senseless dose of screen violence? What will you say about Basic Instinct and the “Texas Chainsaw… with an ice pick” performed by the (still then) sexy Sharon Stone? These films have stuck in your memory, right? Oh, yes! What? You didn’t like them in the front row? Please leave! Well…, I understand that the rest of you have nothing against Paul Verhoeven’s films? If someone does, please also leave this review and don’t read my praises for his film Hollow Man.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I really enjoy Verhoeven’s films, although, of course, they usually have a rather shallow plot, spiced up with a large number of victims killed in 100 and 1 ways. It was no different in Hollow Man, where the showcase of “demonic” skills (once again, after Wild River and Flatliners) is given to us by Kevin Bacon (excellent role in Tremors and Murder in the First). Sebastian Caine (Bacon) works with a former flame (Elisabeth Shue), her new boyfriend, and a team of helpers from various scientific fields on inventing a substance that would cause a return (!) to visibility. Yes, the film’s action doesn’t begin with attempts to invent the invisibility elixir… but its opposite. When the attempt on the gorilla succeeds, and it returns to the world in one piece, Sebastian decides to try the elixir on a human. He volunteers himself… Sebastian disappears… under the influence of the antidote, he reappears, and then… disappears for good. As days go by, he falls into paranoia, and, as he claims, “when you don’t see your reflection in the mirror, all brakes are released.” When he also learns about his ex-girlfriend’s affair with a colleague and that their joint project is hanging by a thread, the brakes release completely, and the vehicle called Sebastian Caine slowly starts rolling downhill. First, he kills the invisible dog…

The special effects in the film Hollow Man are another milestone in this field. We haven’t seen anything like this before. Scenes where the gorilla or Sebastian slowly disappear, showing all internal organs (like a Samurai during SEPPUKU), really leave a lasting impression and give the proverbial “kick.” I also recommend paying attention to the scene of eliminating the noisy dog and Sebastian’s swim in the pool. However, Sebastian looks best when putting on a rubber mask with cutouts for eyes and mouth. And the scene where he scares children, showing them the aforementioned openings (from which emptiness blows), literally knocks you off your feet (with humor)!

Paul Verhoeven made another film that, despite not being very ambitious, is a great watch, and that’s probably the point.

Many wise heads criticize the film Hollow Man because it had the chance to become an intelligent morality tale about the human psyche, the meaning of such research, maybe even the meaning of existence (?), but it only became “another horror movie where blood pours by the liters” (literally!). Strange approach… If Verhoeven had made another stereotypical film about an “invisible” person being chased by government agencies, and the script focused on his psychological problems, dilemmas, and the sense of conducting research on invisibility, critics would have criticized it for being “another bland morality tale about the human psyche, dangerous research… bla bla bla.”

Here, however, the director did something rarely seen. Sebastian, a bit crazy (though not dangerous) positive character who arouses sympathy (especially when he told a joke about Superman)… transforms into an “antihero” in the full sense of the word. Point out another film with such an unusual plot twist… True, nothing comes to mind? So please don’t nitpick the film Hollow Man, and if you like good (and enjoyable to watch) cinema, then go for the movie.