Hollow Man (2000)

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Gary Scott Thompson, Andrew W. Marlowe

Composer: Jerry Goldsmith

Starring: Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Joey Slotnick, Mary Randle, William Devane, Rhona Mitra, Pablo Espinosa, Margot Rose

More info: IMDb

Tagline: What would you do if you were invisible? How far would you go?

Plot: After years of experimentation, brilliant but arrogant scientist Sebastian Caine has discovered a way to make matter invisible. Determined to achieve the ultimate breakthrough, Caine pushes his team to move to the next phase - using himself as the subject. The test is a success, but when the process can't be reversed and Caine seems doomed to future without flesh, he begins to show some unexpected side effects of his extraordinary condition.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.  Twice is enough.

For a movie that's nearly two hours long, it flies by.  It's a good half hour before Caine (Bacon) disappears and starts to have his fun.  He starts to do what a lot of guys would do if they were invisible (except for the raping and killing bits) but he too quickly goes from being a sexual deviant to a violent, killing baddie.  I get that it was because of the drug he took to become invisible but it didn't help the film by rushing into that.  The final hour and twenty minutes breaks down to being invisible, groping women, raping a woman, getting angry that his ex-woman is banging someone else to killing and then a huge final act action set piece back at the lab.  What this needed to be is a short run series on something like HBO so they can explore what it would be like to be invisible.  That's what I'd like to see.  Oh, and the special effects are fantastic.  I dig Verhoeven's films.  He knows how to make a big movie while bringing a European touch.  He's got Jerry Goldsmith back for the score which has a vibe from their previous collaboration, BASIC INSTINCT (1992) (I love that movie).  HOLLOW MAN is pretty good but it lacked sufficient exploration of Caine to make it more interesting than just a big budget sci-fi/horror/thriller and the final confrontation is cliche but still well-done.  The Columbia Special Edition DVD has a commentary with Verhoeven, Bacon and Andrew Marloe, an isolated score track with commentary by Goldsmith, and a 15 minute vintage making of featurette.