Hollowman

Paul Verhoeven, the man behind efforts like Total Recall, Robocop, and Starship Troopers (let's not even mention Showgirls), is one of the most audacious, compelling directors working today. Where other directors would shy away from controversial subject matter, like asking what humans would do when faced without consequences, Verhoeven grips it with an iron fist and does his best to create a lesson on morality. Throughout much of the first half of the film, Verhoeven's questions are intriguing and the film speaks volumes about the situations it presents. Unfortunately, it takes dives in the final act, becoming a hopelessly generic, claustrophobic chase scene of numerous formulaic shock occurences.

While Hollowman is without question a technical achievement, I still look upon it as an opportunity gone wrong. Verhoeven is a director that prizes special effects as one of film's most treasured assets. Each director has their unique strong points: Stanley Kubrick was known for creating pictures worth more than a thousand words, Spielberg is a master of the emotions, and Paul Thomas Anderson is good at commanding interweaving storylines. Just because Verhoeven's style is more modern and less appealing to fearful-of-the-times critics doesn't mean that it's any less influential.

The special effects are the most "gee-whiz" achievements in the field since last years Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. We first view their splendor when a gorilla is sitting on an examination bed. Of course, we can't see the gorilla. All we see are the bed straps keeping it down and the medical cords coming from it's head. The actors proceed to pet the animal, calming it down. The interaction between the actors and the invisible creature is absolutely flawless. Later, we get to see the chemicals being produced slowing move throughout the veins of an invisible creature's body. And, most amazing of all, we see the gorilla's body slowly make the change from visible to invisible - layer by excruciating layer. First goes the hair, then the skin, then the muscles, then the skeleton and the organs. In addition, I've read that the special effects in these sequences are completely anatomically correct.

For most of its running time, Hollowman is chilling in it's portrayal of human morals. When it meanders from it's most interesting aspect, the film goes horribly awry. It becomes one chase scene after another, and the finale is so over-the-top that it's difficult to swallow. The lab that they work is the setting for perhaps three-fourths of the entire movie, and it becomes dreadfully boring to look at the same scenery for two hours. It's definitely a nicely engineered laboratory, but it gets to be claustrophobic.

The script is the film's faltering point. It does not know what its purpose is: to concentrate on Caine's (Kevin Bacon) superiority complex; his romantic past with Elisabeth Shue's character; or his fall into insanity. Josh Brolin seems to have little purpose in the film other than to be somebody for Elisabeth Shue to kiss and to take his shirt off. Elisabeth Shue seems miscast as the brilliant scientist (once again - she played the same thing in The Saint) but is adequate. Kevin Bacon is good as could be expected with a character who is as confused as the script from which he emerged.

I see Hollowman as an opportunity gone wrong because Verhoeven's exacting view of production design and special effects are in their element. It's technically an outstanding piece of work that is almost destroyed by a bad script. Given the right script, Verhoeven could potentially have made the definitive piece of work based on the familiar story of the Invisible Man. He's instead made something that is intriguing only because of his technical virtuosity.

On a scale of 1 to 10 trouser snakes : 5