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Detective Frank Turner is called to the scene of a murder,
but when the victim is discovered to be a secret institute
research scientist the military immediately muscle-in to take
over. Instead, Frank and his partner are assigned to protect
a female research scientist from the same institute. An unseen
assailant kills his partner, and suddenly Frank finds himself
on the run with the scientist, Maggie Dalton. He wants answers
but he isn't prepared for the truth. Somewhere out there is
an invisible psychotic rogue soldier who will kill anyone
to get to Maggie. There are serious side-effects to the invisibility.
Griffin, the soldier, is suffering massive cell degradation
and he desperately needs the buffer serum, which Maggie has
developed, to stay alive...
I
very nearly didn't get to review this one at all. After putting
the check disc into my player, I found that the data refused
to break away from the menus. I was frozen out of "Set
Up" and "Play Movie", and was obliged to reinsert
the disc several times, eventually succeeding in playing the
film through the chapter menus (it refused to function properly
on another player too). I hoped this inauspicious start wasn't
an omen. Ironically, the moment I finished viewing the production,
the menus decided to free-up and work as normal. I hope this
is a glitch which has been rectified for the retail release.
I'm not a big fan of the original Hollow
Man, because it was a showcase for the (admittedly
excellent) special effects, which totally overshadowed the
meagre plot and characterisation. Kevin Bacon, whom I admire
greatly as an actor (great in A Stir of Echoes, and
outstanding in Tremors) was totally wasted.
Similarly
here, the talents of Christian Slater are squandered because
he appears as himself in only one flashback scene and for
the rest of the film he is invisible. The director apparently
chose Slater for his distinctive and recognisable voice, but
to hire a reasonably big name only to render him unseen for
almost the entire running time seems to me an incredible waste
of money and resources. Not to mention the viewers; fans of
Slater might avoid this release altogether for the reasons
I've already described.
Nevertheless,
the story is significantly more engaging than its predecessor.
The special effects are rightly kept to a minimum. It has
connections with the first film, but is careful to work as
a stand-alone piece.
This
is one of those protection plots; essentially a run-around
suspense thriller more than a science fiction or horror, and
similar in some ways to the structure of Eraser. If
you caught this on TV late at night, there would be enough
going on to keep you watching, but I doubt many people would
be interested in repeated viewings. Therefore, rental might
be the better option.
Special
Features include Inside Hollow Man (16 mins), a Visual
Effects Comparison, a Storyboard Comparison, Storyboard
Gallery, and Trailers.
Ty
Power
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