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Hollow Man 2
2006 - NR - 90 Mins.
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| Director: Claudio Faeh | | Producer: Douglas Wick | | | Starring: Christian Slater, Laura Regan, Peter Facinelli |
| Review by: Harrison Cheung |
| Official Site: www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/hollowman2 |
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The ghost of Christian Slater's career
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The first 'Hollow Man' movie came out in 2000 and starred Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue in a Paul Verhoeven-directed ('Basic Instinct'), hyper-violent and nudity-filled sci-fi update of the classic sci-fi flick, 'The Invisible Man.'
A moderate success at the box office, 'Hollow Man' nevertheless generated this low budget, straight to video sequel starring Christian Slater ('Heathers','‘Broken Arrow'). Correction, it stars the *voice* of Christian Slater. Slater, who was often touted as the next Jack Nicholson, has had his shares of up and mostly career downs, but 'Hollow Man 2' is an atrociously bad movie. Verhoeven is nowhere in sight as this turkey was directed by newcomer, Claudio Faeh.
I’ve said this before, but the B-movie creations which air on the U.S. Sci-Fi Channel or Canada's Space Channel, may have less-than-great special effects, but the stories and acting are steadily improving to the point where we have such superb projects as 'Battlestar Galactica.' So what’s the point of making a straight-to-video project like 'Hollow Man 2' which didn’t even merit a Sci-Fi channel airing?
Some producers must have sat in a room and suddenly realized that a movie about an invisible man could be made with next to no budget. Just have your actors flinch and fall, as if some invisible guy was hitting them. Door swings open? Windows break? It’s back to basic special effects as people flee Slater’s voice, which is the only hint that there’s trouble afoot.
The story, such as it is: Slater plays the victim of a government experiment gone wrong. He’s out for revenge against the scientists who made him invisible. Of course, the first movie enjoyed the peculiarities of being invisible (unable to close your eyes, watching food digest down your intestines, etc…). Those would require a special effects budget, so all we get in 'Hollow Man 2' are sound effects, lots of lamps toppling over – who did that? – and the occasional bloody footprint, since Slater's character is presumably nude as the invisible man.
Aside from the laughably bad use of "invisible man" special effects, 'Hollow Man 2' is agonizingly slow, enjoying long "in the lab" flashbacks where regretful scientists muse about the ethics of human experimentation. The point of the first movie – that sort of Michael Crichton-esque danger about playing God with science – has been replaced with an aimless hunter-killer movie where the predator is invisible.
In this day and age of night vision cameras and heat-sensing equipment that are used even by plumbers ('Ghosthunters'), an invisible naked man doesn’t sound particularly menacing or all-powerful. When Slater takes out an entire FBI team, you have to wonder why these special ops guys with goggles and guns and Kevlar can’t just grab a hold of anybody that bumps into them. The only thing scary about 'Hollow Man 2' is the obvious and sad decline of Christian Slater's career.
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