Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here. I'll be joining Harry, John Robie, Father Geek, Junior Mintz, Segue Zagnut, and many other spies at the San Diego Comicon today for a few hours, and I thought I'd take the time before then to offer up a few stories to get the weekend started. First up, we've got THEJuice, a fairly regular spy, with his look at what most geeks see as the next big summer film to anticipate. I've read the script and visited the set with Harry, and my interest level on the film is at about a 5 on a 1-10 scale. I'm curious, but I'm hardly what I'd call excited. Harry really liked the early cut he saw of the film, and some of the choices he described that Verhoeven made are provocative. Let's hope the final film measures up, 'cause THEJuice found it lacking. Let's see why...
Harry, Harry, Harry...Juice checking back in with Verhoeven's newest and unfortunately we don't see exactly eye to eye.
I'd rate it behind Robocop, Starship Troopers, and Total Recall. Call it along with Basic Instinct and well above Showgirls.
Don't get me wrong it's not anywhere near Showgirls bad, but other than the revolutionary special effects Hollow Man is a dud.
In an excellent start (start strong, sloooowww down, end fair), we are quickly introduced to the best looking group of scientists I have ever seen (replace stereotypical Hollywood geeks with stereotypical Hollywood pretty faces). They are a government funded research team attempting to figure out how, not only to make someone invisible, but also to bring them back to their full visible form. We are let in, after a fairly inventive opening shot, mid-swing of the research. Kevin Bacon and crew have figured out how to make animals invisible (ranging from rats to gorillas), yet the recovery process is a different story. For those of you who were hoping for an intriguing science fiction explanation of the invisibility process look elsewhere, we are given no hints as to how this ridiculous (yet visually satisfying) process works.
After Bacon brainstorms the antidote, using a Dr. Mario like technique, which looks strangely simple for something so complex, he successfully tests it on his invisible gorilla subject. Despite what his colleagues advise and behind the back of his pentagon funding Doctor K decides its his turn to...dun dun dun...become the Hollow Man.
"Ghosts are dead, I am very much alive." Bacon is decent in his monotone role not showing much emotion other than controlled anger, but for me it was quite obvious why he took the part (is it just me or does he have a script requirement where he must show his ass).
The problem with this movie is that I didn't have many emotions other than repulsion. Usually Verhoeven can piss you off, gross you out, and upset you in the same scene, drawing you deeper into the movie. We had like five people walk out of a 30 person theater when Kevin Bacon bashes a puppy's head-in out of anger and even I had to admit that it was a bit much. But usually if the movie has you, things like that just get you more into the film, such is not the case in Hollow Man.
Possibly a slower characterization pace to Hollow Man would have done it good. Show Bacon going a little farther step by step, doing something and deciding that going a little further wont hurt until the point he has gone too far. Instead invisible Bacon uses his first seconds of freedom to grab a co-workers breast as she sleeps. He shows no emotional problems with what he does as he grows closer and closer to insanity.
Problems like this made some scenes in this movie (for lack of a better word) stupid. The ending is incredibly predictable, think of it as a Friday the 13th flick with big special effects, we meet all the characters...they are set up for a fall and we predict who will survive and who wont, that simple.
I went into this film with high expectations. I was hoping for something edgier and more exciting, instead I got a dragged out middle, a couple breasts, and a predictable ending. What I did get out of it was kick ASS special effects; the kind where you just kinda sit back and say...shit that's cool. Once again solidifying my feelings that this film is far short of the emotional and physical potential Verhoeven is capable of. I've heard about a controversial rape scene, yet there was nothing of the sort in this cut of the film. Whether the mpaa forced cuts or it was just Internet rumor is unknown to me.
Worth seeing? Yes FOR the special effects, just don't go in looking for a horror/suspense classic like I did...
So like that the Juice...eh disappears (with no logical explanation how)
