STARS: **
DIRECTOR: Paul Verhoeven
PRINCIPLE CAST:
Kevin Bacon
Elisabeth Shue
Josh Brolin
TAGLINE: There's more to fear than you can see.
What would you do if you knew you couldn�t get caught and would not have to look at yourself in the mirror anymore? If asked this question, our mind instantly think of the worst possible scenario. This movie is no different. What we have is a scientist turning himself invisible, going crazy, and going on a murderous rampage.
Sure, it sounds interesting enough, but the development of Kevin Bacon�s character�s insanity is just as the title describes it: hollow. After going invisible, he discovers he cannot come back and gets very pissed off. He then rapes the woman he�s been spying on, catches his ex-girlfriend, Elisabeth Shue, with a fellow scientist, Josh Brolin, goes crazy, and kills off a few expendable characters. Amidst all the wonderful special effects, this film turns into nothing more than a continuation of the Friday the 13th series, full with a murderer that just won�t die. Watching these characters, I kept wondering, �how can people with enough intelligence to make someone invisible be this stupid?� After a while, you can start picturing the Mystery Science Theater 3000 sitting in the front seats, counting off the clich�s. 1) Character forgets something and is killed before they can catch up with the others. 2) The others don�t notice the character is missing. 3) Character turn back to open door. And so on and so on�
Don�t get me wrong, I still found this movie entertaining, and even a bit suspenseful, so I don�t blame director Paul Verhoeven, but for some reason it just didn�t gel. The characters were just too stupid to be as smart as they were supposed to be. They have a limited vocabulary and even less common sense for people with obviously high IQ�s. However, with all this, I was still entertained.
I think my biggest gripe is Elisabeth Shue. No offense to her, I think she is a great actress, but I just could not find her at all believable here. She delivers her dialogue as a cardboard cutout with a voice. Yes, the dialogue is paper-thin, but that doesn�t mean she must make her character the same way. She has been acting for nearly twenty years, yet seemed incredibly inexperienced. This was just obviously not the role for her and I believe she should have passed on the role and given it to some upcoming starlet.
Well, with all this bitching I�ve been doing, you�d think I would dismiss this as a bad film, but it isn�t. Is it a great film? No, but it�s by far not a bad one either. It was just a major disappointment. The story is clich� and the acting is average, but the special f/x are phenomenal. This is a movie that horror movie fans will find entertaining, but average viewer is on a fifty-fifty level. I would have really preferred if the story had continued with the invisible animals in the beginning of the film, maybe being Hollow Creatures instead. I could have also found the movie more appealing if the death scenes were more creative, following in the footsteps of Final Destination. But this is still a pretty good movie, and worth the special effects, but I would recommend you do what I did and catch a matinee.
