I saw Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon a couple of weeks ago with my husband. It wasn’t my favorite horror film but it also wasn’t the worst I have ever seen.
This movie is about an experiment gone wrong. The government is funding experiments on animals to determine if they can be made inviable and then brought back to normal. The experiments are going well, but the egotistic scientist wants to do human experimenting before he turns the information over to the government. He decides to be the Guinea pig in the experiment and become invisible. At first there seems to be very little problem with the experiment except for the fact that the ’’lab rat’’ doesn’t seem to enjoy staying put where he can be observed. He decides to go out and enjoy his experimenting and do what someone who is sadistic and self centered would do if he were invisible. When the drug that is supposed to bring him back to a normal state fails he becomes increasingly agitated and does even more extreme things while he is invisible. I am not sure if it is the drugs, the power of invisibility, the inability to go back to normal, or just his nature but he becomes very violent. After his partners in the experiment inform a government agent of the experiment, the scientist really looses control. He decides to erase anyone who might have knowledge of his situation and then he can go on being invisible forever. So he kills the government agent and sets out to destroy everyone involved in the experiments.
There is a great deal of action and wonderful special effects, but the plot is shallow and the character development is almost nonexistent. We learn about the scientist’s egotistical side only through comments he makes about being God and seeing that he drives a sports car and thinks it is fun to spy on the lady next door. There is a few clues dropped that he had a past relationship with one of the partners who is currently sleeping with the other partner. Other than that we aren’t really sure what is going on with any of the characters.
There are some scenes that I felt promoted violence to women. I don’t particularly like the idea that the very fist thing this scientist can think of to do when he is invisible is to go unbutton his co-workers blouse or that after that he decides to have sex (lets call it what it really is, rape) with the lady across the street. Many times there is references to forced sex. That isn’t completely unusual for a horror film though so I wasn’t totally surprised. What did surprise me was the amount of male nudity in the show. There are a few rear shots of Kevin Bacon and a glance at his manliness as well. There was some female nudity in the movie also. So it isn’t appropriate for children.
This movie made me jump a few times and left me wondering how some of the special effects were accomplished. It also left me asking a lot about where the plot went and why it had been so shallow. So if you are looking for a really interesting movie with great character definition and plot twists then you should just pass this one by, but if you are in for a night of action and special effects without having to use your brain then you have found the perfect thriller, even if it isn’t really perfect.