Hollow Man

If you have been anywhere near a cinema recently, you will have been reliably informed that Kevin Bacon is the centre of the universe. But did you also know that Kevin Bacon is a psychotic, invisible murderer. I thought not!

From the director of the original Total Recall and Basic Instinct Paul Verhoeve, it's fair to say that you wouldn't expect this offering from 2000 to be particularly intelligent. And you'd be right, although there are a few deeper undertones.

Kevin Bacon plays Sebastien Caine, an egocentric, arrogant and narcissistic scientist. His life goal is...to make people invisible. Obviously. And when he decides to secretly perform human testing, guess who he chooses as the ideal test subject? Himself.

But, as demonstrated by Plato when he referred to the fable of the Ring of Gyges, being invisible tends to have disastrous consequences. Once attempts to render Sebastien uninvisible fail, the power gets to head. After deciding that he might as well rape, pillage and murder as no one will catch him, he goes on to perform many despicable deeds. What finally tips him over the edge is when he finds out his colleague is sleeping with his ex. In a childish strop, Bacon decides to kill everyone in the lab and then go on to terrorise the world. Mwahahaha!

As you may have already realised, the set-up is a little bit immature. Verhoeve hopes to keep his audience gripped by impressive visuals. But even these don't quite hit the spot, you initially feel repulsed by the slightly nauseating transition between visible and invisible and vise versa, but after the second time boredom prevails. In desperation for a resonant ending, Verhoeve goes down predictable lines and causes the lab to explode. But, to his credit, they are multicoloured explosions.

Tragically, Bacon is by far the best actor in this melodramatic mess, but as he spends the majority of the film invisible, he only has the power of his voice to convey his developing insanity. He manages to make the well worn role of the eccentric, slightly unhinged professor seem fresh, and is a sumptuous villain, charming and charismatic but wonderfully evil. And, as you come to realise by the end of the film, he is practically immortal. The rest of the cast aren't called upon to do much other than look worried and die dramatically.

In the film's favour there are some great lines, which are more or less monopolised by Sebastien. "It's amazing what you can do when you don't have to look at yourself in the mirror any more" nicely sums up Plato's ideas about their being no morality if there was no consequences. Also, the central concept of an invisible psychopath that could pounce at any moment is a good one, although it has been exploited many times.

But sadly, apart from the horrible image of a naked Kevin Bacon flashing his innards at you being burnt on to your retinas, the movie leaves no lasting impact. It has fleeting moments of cleverness, but you are left with the feeling that Sebastien's fall from grace could have been managed better, turning it in to a tragedy rather than just another horror flick.

Rating: 3/10