Nowhere man Kevin Bacon is making plans in Hollywood’s latest addition to the sci-fi horror genre. [R]
By: Kam Williams
Maybe it was the projection mishap that spoiled the suspense. About two-thirds of the way into Hollow Man, Hollywood’s latest invisible man flick, at a critical point when the unseen villain was busy unleashing mayhem, the picture suddenly got flipped upside down. The sound became garbled. The story jumped to the end of the movie and headed in reverse.
For the next 20 minutes, the audience exploded in laughter as the reel played backwards, watching bloody, hacked corpses come back to life and back away unharmed from a transparent maniac. A more seasoned critic than I left as soon as the technical difficulty occurred, whispering to me that, "It’ll take at least an hour to correct the problem." Not only had he underestimated the delay, but the film’s tension was spoiled and it was no longer funny or compelling when resumed forward.
Bacon brother Kevin (best known as integral cinematic link in the parlor game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) stars as Dr. Sebastian Caine, head of a research team which cracks the DNA code for phase shifting via quantum reversion, which in layman’s terms means invisibility. But before cashing in on his ground-breaking discovery by sharing it with the medical community, the pharmaceutical industry or the government, the doctor first chooses to inject himself with his phosphorescent, disappearing serum in order to look at naked women. Of course, the Peeping Tom ups the ante once it sinks in that he’s undetectable. He starts molesting women. You fill in the blanks.
Dutch director Paul Verhoeven (Starship Troopers, Robocop, Showgirls, Basic Instinct and Total Recall) gets top grades for the special effects. My problem comes with the sympathetic treatment given Bacon’s Jekyll and Hyde character. Why manipulate an audience into rooting for such a despicable protagonist?
The ensemble supporting cast is headed by Elizabeth Shue (Karate Kid, Leaving Las Vegas) as Dr. Linda Foster and Streisand son-in-law Josh Brolin (Mimic) as Dr. Matthew Kensington. Doctors Foster and Kensington have kept their torrid love affair a secret from Linda’s jealous ex, Dr. Caine, who is immensely curious about her sex life. Once Caine is hollowed out by the experimental drug, he’s easily able to catch them in the act and begin his attempts to get even. In this day and age of orders of protection, laws against stalking and heightened sensitivity to spousal abuse and violence against women, I’m uncomfortable with the film’s implication that it’s reasonable to keep such close tabs on an old flame and explode over a new lover.
Bacon delivers one of his predictably charmless performances as the deranged doctor. Despite his many haunting lines such as, "You have no idea how much fun this is!" (A paraphrase of Nicole Kidman’s classic line from Eyes Wide Shut), Kevin never really lets you inside his head as he wreaks havoc on his ex and other staffers who rankle him, including Sarah (Kim Dickens), a seductive veterinarian, orderly Janice (Mary Jo Randle), hall monitor Carter (Greg Grunberg) and lab goof-off Frank (Joey Slotnick).
The film, while too gory and unsettling for the weak of stomach, will nonetheless make a major splash based on the spectacular effects alone. And, who knows, maybe if I’d seen Hollow Man in correct sequence from beginning to end, I might have found all the gratuitous, sexualized violence more entertaining than offensive.
Rated R for nudity, profanity, sex, rape, graphic violence and gore.
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