In the 2000 film Hollow Man, Kevin Bacon stars as Sebastian Caine. Sebastian is a brilliant scientist who has created a serum that, when taken, will turn someone invisible. It’s quite an accomplishment, but you get the feeling that no one’s particularly happy about Sebastian being the one who discovered it. That’s because Sebastian is an arrogant narcissist who is not only a bit of a perv but who also listens to terrible prog rock whenever he’s driving around town. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned in the past, I am firmly of the opinion that progressive rock is the music of evil people, and no film makes that argument clearer than Hollow Man.
Having already successfully tested the serum on a gorilla, Sebastian decides to take the experiment a step further and take the serum himself. Soon, Sebastian is invisible. At first, Sebastian is content to play mean but ultimately harmless pranks on his colleagues, but soon his behavior grows worse and worse. Is the serum causing Sebastian to lose his mind, or has being invisible allowed Sebastian to reveal his true self? It’s not easy to say, because Sebastian was hardly a likable guy before he took the serum. He’s always been a jerk and, even before taking the serum, he was already obsessed with both his ex-girlfriend Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) and his next-door neighbor (Rhona Mitra). What is certain is that Sebastian soon becomes addicted to his invisibility. Whenever the serum wears off, he resents the tests that his colleagues put him through. The invisible man starts to stalk and kill his colleagues.
Oh, this film. Hollow Man is an update of The Invisible Man, but it doesn’t quite work. The first time that I saw this movie, I thought it seemed to be excessively mean-spirited, but I figured that, since it was a Paul Verhoeven film, there had to be some sort of satiric subtext to all of the blood and the sexual violence. But then I read an interview with Verhoeven where he said that Hollow Man was the most impersonal of his American films and that it was also a film that he felt any director could have made. Verhoeven said that making the film was such a discouraging experience for him that, despite the film’s box office success, it still inspired him to leave Hollywood and return to Europe.
The film is relentlessly cruel. The actors who play Sebastian’s colleagues — Shue, Josh Brolin, Joey Slotnick, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Mary Randle, and William Devane — are all likable, but they’re also stuck playing stock characters who have to do stupid things so that they can be in a position to die in the most gruesome ways possible. (The scene where Grunberg’s neck starts spurting blood is particularly grotesque.) With the exception of a scene where an invisible Sebastian drives around Los Angeles, there’s very little of Verhoeven’s trademark wit. Perhaps if this film were a low-budget grindhouse film, it would be more fun. As it is, the admittedly effective special effects just leave you wondering if any of that money could have been spent on a better script.
It’s also hard to watch Kevin Bacon play such an unlikable character. It’s not that Bacon can’t play villains. It’s just that he projects such a down-to-earth, blue-collar attitude that he feels miscast as a mad scientist. Sometimes, he seems to be trying too hard in the role. If there’s anything that we should have learned from Flatliners, it’s that Kiefer Sutherland should play the mad scientist while Kevin Bacon plays the guy who understands how dangerous an uncontrolled experiment can be. Bacon should have been the one saying, “You’re going to make yourself invisible? Are you stupid or something?”
Hollow Man is ultimately a hollow film.
