Note: This review contains minor spoilers, though there isn't much to spoil and you'll be doing yourself a huge favor if you read the review instead of seeing the movie.
I don't think I've ever rushed this fast to give something a bad review in the IMDB.
I keep trying to go back to what I could have been thinking when I selected this at the rental store. I heard a lot of bad things about it, enough to keep me from seeing it in the theater. Maybe what stuck in my mind were a few people saying it had one or two really good FX scenes, and also Kevin Bacon's diary of the filming, which made it sound so grueling and unpleasant that I felt some pity for him and thought I should give it a chance. Big mistake. Big, BIG mistake.
Most of the other reviews say it all...but I need to write down how bad this movie is and hopefully purge it from my system. You know, I don't ask for the impossible when I sit down to watch a movie. All I really want from a movie, at minimum, is to be entertained or to escape for 90 minutes or so. The movie started out OK but after the gorilla scene, and the two other invisible transformation scenes, it really went downhill. And got worse.
Oh yeah, in case you haven't seen the trailer, or read a review, the plot is: a group of scientists is working on an invisibility formula, for the government. The leader of the project is smart, but an arrogant jerk. He meddles with mother nature (another no-no in a scary movie) and deliberately deceives people who trust him (again, another mistake) so the formula can be tested on him as the first human. You'll never guess what happens then: things go horribly wrong! People turn to murder! Disaster strikes! You waste 2 hours of your time and a rental fee because you should have just watched the trailer, which gave the whole plot away anyway!
I had low expectations for this movie-all I wanted was for something to surprise me, or there to be a special effect or shock that made me watch the scene/moment again a couple times. Or at least want to. For instance, "Deep Blue Sea" was stupid and mainly lame, but at least had that one big surprise (you know the one I mean-I won't give it away like someone did to me before I saw it). Nope.
I didn't find any of the characters likeable. Sorry, but I don't have too much respect for any character in a horror/thriller movie that does any of the following: 1. walks backward when they know they are in danger 2. turns their back on someone dangerous that they've conked/injured and strolls away without checking to see if they've really been incapacitated 3. immediately separates when they first realize they are in an isolated area being stalked by someone or 4. says something to the effect of "well, I'm glad *that's* over" when things obviously aren't-and if you've seen even one other scary movie, everyone knows this is always a precursor to the villain/monster immediately swooping down on them again or lunging into frame. This movie has ALL of the above-which I could overlook if the movie was at least slightly entertaining (Bruce Campbell in any of the Evil Dead movies usually does all of the above, but makes it fun to watch, to name just one example).
Also-and I see by the other reviews that I'm not alone here- I get really insulted when, especially on top of all the other crap, a villain conveniently becomes indestructible in the last half hour or so with no explanation. About every possible debilitating injury happens to him and it doesn't seem to slow him down. All that was missing was him being shot and the bullets bouncing off him.
I expected there to be one interesting or memorable concept, especially since (I thought at the time) the movie had such meticulous attention to detail and seemed to take a very high-tech, scientific approach to the story. The trailers and background info on the making of this film, plus how long it took in post-production, gave me that impression. The reviews gave it more credit than it had. I was at first slightly interested in the fact that an invisible character couldn't close their eyes, because they had transparent eyelids. I never thought of that! Hmmm, maybe they came up with some other cool twists. That's about as interesting as it gets, and the only new idea they came up with. (then, that got shot all to hell, because about 1 minute later it occurred to me that the person could wear a sleep mask, or go in a completely blacked-out room). A person graphically stripped of all their layers, reminding you (if you're old enough) of the 'visible man' kit you had as a kid? Been done before (though not as well technically as in this movie). A gorilla doing the same thing? OK, that hasn't been done before, at least not that I know of, but that's maybe 30 seconds that are slightly interesting. Let's face it, you thinking "hey, good CGI" occasionally is not enough to build a good movie on- in fact, it's pretty sad.
I would run out of room if I went into even half of the continuity errors. Just look at the goofs page-I think I've seen one other movie in the IMDB that had a goofs page that long. Now, I'm the type of person who people have to point out continuity errors to before I notice them. Here I noticed ones I didn't even LOOK for. What happened? Did they run out of time? Money? The studio rushed them? What's really depressing is someone probably noticed, but they either were too lacy to care or figured the audience would be so impressed with the CGI that their IQs would drop about 50 points and they'd miss it. Not to beat a dead horse, but if the movie had a character that was interesting, or if any scenes surprised me, or entertained me, I could overlook it being stupid and built around some 'ground-breaking' CGI. Yes, I know what a 'popcorn movie/turn off your brain movie' is, where you just sit back and enjoy the mindless ride. Starship Troopers, Total Recall, Scary Movie- *those* are popcorn movies. It's also not a camp/so bad it's good type movie. Showgirls, Mommy Dearest, Glen or Glenda- those are ones you can sit and make fun of with your friends. No, instead The Hollow Man is just a waste of everyone's time and money, and that's putting it in way more polite terms than I want to.
I would only recommend this if you are a CGI/FX junkie,if you thought "Armageddon" and "Patch Adams" were deep, insightful masterpieces and and you didn't understand why everyone said anything bad about them, or if you really have the hots for Kevin Bacon (though skip the 'becoming invisible' scene, among others, if you don't want to get completely turned off). Interesting premise that goes absolutely nowhere. You have been warned!!
I don't think I've ever rushed this fast to give something a bad review in the IMDB.
I keep trying to go back to what I could have been thinking when I selected this at the rental store. I heard a lot of bad things about it, enough to keep me from seeing it in the theater. Maybe what stuck in my mind were a few people saying it had one or two really good FX scenes, and also Kevin Bacon's diary of the filming, which made it sound so grueling and unpleasant that I felt some pity for him and thought I should give it a chance. Big mistake. Big, BIG mistake.
Most of the other reviews say it all...but I need to write down how bad this movie is and hopefully purge it from my system. You know, I don't ask for the impossible when I sit down to watch a movie. All I really want from a movie, at minimum, is to be entertained or to escape for 90 minutes or so. The movie started out OK but after the gorilla scene, and the two other invisible transformation scenes, it really went downhill. And got worse.
Oh yeah, in case you haven't seen the trailer, or read a review, the plot is: a group of scientists is working on an invisibility formula, for the government. The leader of the project is smart, but an arrogant jerk. He meddles with mother nature (another no-no in a scary movie) and deliberately deceives people who trust him (again, another mistake) so the formula can be tested on him as the first human. You'll never guess what happens then: things go horribly wrong! People turn to murder! Disaster strikes! You waste 2 hours of your time and a rental fee because you should have just watched the trailer, which gave the whole plot away anyway!
I had low expectations for this movie-all I wanted was for something to surprise me, or there to be a special effect or shock that made me watch the scene/moment again a couple times. Or at least want to. For instance, "Deep Blue Sea" was stupid and mainly lame, but at least had that one big surprise (you know the one I mean-I won't give it away like someone did to me before I saw it). Nope.
I didn't find any of the characters likeable. Sorry, but I don't have too much respect for any character in a horror/thriller movie that does any of the following: 1. walks backward when they know they are in danger 2. turns their back on someone dangerous that they've conked/injured and strolls away without checking to see if they've really been incapacitated 3. immediately separates when they first realize they are in an isolated area being stalked by someone or 4. says something to the effect of "well, I'm glad *that's* over" when things obviously aren't-and if you've seen even one other scary movie, everyone knows this is always a precursor to the villain/monster immediately swooping down on them again or lunging into frame. This movie has ALL of the above-which I could overlook if the movie was at least slightly entertaining (Bruce Campbell in any of the Evil Dead movies usually does all of the above, but makes it fun to watch, to name just one example).
Also-and I see by the other reviews that I'm not alone here- I get really insulted when, especially on top of all the other crap, a villain conveniently becomes indestructible in the last half hour or so with no explanation. About every possible debilitating injury happens to him and it doesn't seem to slow him down. All that was missing was him being shot and the bullets bouncing off him.
I expected there to be one interesting or memorable concept, especially since (I thought at the time) the movie had such meticulous attention to detail and seemed to take a very high-tech, scientific approach to the story. The trailers and background info on the making of this film, plus how long it took in post-production, gave me that impression. The reviews gave it more credit than it had. I was at first slightly interested in the fact that an invisible character couldn't close their eyes, because they had transparent eyelids. I never thought of that! Hmmm, maybe they came up with some other cool twists. That's about as interesting as it gets, and the only new idea they came up with. (then, that got shot all to hell, because about 1 minute later it occurred to me that the person could wear a sleep mask, or go in a completely blacked-out room). A person graphically stripped of all their layers, reminding you (if you're old enough) of the 'visible man' kit you had as a kid? Been done before (though not as well technically as in this movie). A gorilla doing the same thing? OK, that hasn't been done before, at least not that I know of, but that's maybe 30 seconds that are slightly interesting. Let's face it, you thinking "hey, good CGI" occasionally is not enough to build a good movie on- in fact, it's pretty sad.
I would run out of room if I went into even half of the continuity errors. Just look at the goofs page-I think I've seen one other movie in the IMDB that had a goofs page that long. Now, I'm the type of person who people have to point out continuity errors to before I notice them. Here I noticed ones I didn't even LOOK for. What happened? Did they run out of time? Money? The studio rushed them? What's really depressing is someone probably noticed, but they either were too lacy to care or figured the audience would be so impressed with the CGI that their IQs would drop about 50 points and they'd miss it. Not to beat a dead horse, but if the movie had a character that was interesting, or if any scenes surprised me, or entertained me, I could overlook it being stupid and built around some 'ground-breaking' CGI. Yes, I know what a 'popcorn movie/turn off your brain movie' is, where you just sit back and enjoy the mindless ride. Starship Troopers, Total Recall, Scary Movie- *those* are popcorn movies. It's also not a camp/so bad it's good type movie. Showgirls, Mommy Dearest, Glen or Glenda- those are ones you can sit and make fun of with your friends. No, instead The Hollow Man is just a waste of everyone's time and money, and that's putting it in way more polite terms than I want to.
I would only recommend this if you are a CGI/FX junkie,if you thought "Armageddon" and "Patch Adams" were deep, insightful masterpieces and and you didn't understand why everyone said anything bad about them, or if you really have the hots for Kevin Bacon (though skip the 'becoming invisible' scene, among others, if you don't want to get completely turned off). Interesting premise that goes absolutely nowhere. You have been warned!!