Yesterday I went to the cinema to watch Hollow Man. It's a really stupid movie
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
As I told you, I went to the cinema to watch "Hollow Man", a movie bei Verhoeven, starring Kevin Bacon and some unknown actors. The trailers were quite thrilling, Paul Verhoeven said in an interview that he did a really great movie, which also was very expensive. The critics told about fantastic special effects.
Well, the special effects were indeed fantastic. I also believe the movie was very expensive. The only problem is, they forgot one important thing to make this movie really great: Logic.
Okay, it's dangerous to expect logic in a movie that deals with a crazy scientist who becomes invisible. That was not the problem. The invisibility-story was okay and also quite logical. I have a problem with some little details.
Ridiculous was the so-called final battle. Imagine this: the invisible man wants to kill all his colleagues in the research team. That's very easy, because he trapped them in a Pentagon-secured research facility (underground) with extremely perfect security systems. The only lift has to be activated by voice, code and finger print. So the invisible man just eliminated the access codes of his colleages and voila! They were all trapped, together with a mad invisible man.
After having slaughtered all but two team members, the remaining two suddenly remembered the fact that there was an escape staircase besides the lift. That's a very early moment to remember the fact, isn't it?
First of all it made us crazy that the haunted people always took off their IR-glasses. They had a perfect tool to see an invisible man by infrared glasses, but they consequently ignored, forgot or just took off these glasses. If I were in their situation, I would have put off these tools for not a second, even if I went to the toilet or did something else. No, these people wore the glasses in their hands, while shouting into the mike "Hey, I can't see him! Where is he?" while the answer came "Take care! He's right in front of you!" That would be a moment to put on the glasses. No, the hero fires a blind shot in the suspected direction and screams in panic when attacked by the invisible man.
Another sequence was quite impressive. You may also call it a medical miracle: The invisible man tried to kill his colleague (who is his ex-wifes lover) by ramming a tool into his stomach. The victim suffers severe injuries. His lover - the invisible man's ex-wife - has a brilliant idea: She seals the open stomach with adhensive tape. Okay. Afterwards the two are trapped in a freezing chamber by the invisible man, who turns on the cooling. While the stomach-injured man lies on the ground and seems to be dying by blood loss and the cold, the woman sits there freezing and crying. At -50° degrees her tears immediately freeze to ice. Everything is covered with ice by now. This is the moment of inspiration: Instead of freezing to death, like every normal guy would do, she becomes active, constructs a huge electronic magnet out of a doorhandle and medical equipment and just opens the door of the freezing chamber. In the meantime the invisible man mixes some nitroglycerin which is stored in the lab's centrifuge. This is a situation where urgent actions are important.
The woman leaves the open-stomach-man besides a burning barrel and runs to the lift, where she wants to climb up the ladder and call for help.
It is obvious that the invisible man doesn't want her to escape, so he stops her. It results in a heavy fighting. The woman is lying on the ground. There seems to be no hope, but then! There comes the hero! Open-stomach-man has recovered from his frozen state and fights the invisible man with electic shocks. This is a dangerous action, because the three of them all stand on a wet surface. But another miracle occurs! Only the invisible man is shocked and burned, the two heroes are lying in the water and seem to be very isolated from bad influences. Lucky two!
This gives the open-stomach-man some motivation and he and his lover begin to climb up the ladder, which is only a few 100 metres high. On their way up they fight the invisible man a few more times, because it seems to be impossible to kill a man who is invisible by a flamethrower, electric shocks or shells, they have some trouble with a wild lift, but in the end they climb up and happily reach the surface. His injury seems to be forgotten (propably hanging on one hand on a ladder, surrounded by flames and a crazy lift cures deep cuts in a sensational way) and they are all happy. It seems that adhensive tape is quite great stuff for holding together open flesh. I wonder why there still is surgery in the world, maybe just because doctors want to earn more money. If they could cure serious injuries by taping them with dirty tape, they would soon be out of money. On the other hand - the movie ended at that point, we will never know if the man suffered blood poisoning afterwards. But if we are honest, we don't care.
Well, these are only a few of the most abstruse moments in this movie.
The idea was okay, the first half of the movie was okay. But the final battle was really ridiculous. It would have been funny, if they hadn't all acted as if it was a very important and serious topic. The only logical thing (okay, halfway) in this movie was the scientific side of how to become invisible. I have the strong feeling that only reason of the orgy of special effects which was fired in the last half hour of the movie was to hide the fact that they forgot one important thing: The story.
Well, the special effects were indeed fantastic. I also believe the movie was very expensive. The only problem is, they forgot one important thing to make this movie really great: Logic.
Okay, it's dangerous to expect logic in a movie that deals with a crazy scientist who becomes invisible. That was not the problem. The invisibility-story was okay and also quite logical. I have a problem with some little details.
Ridiculous was the so-called final battle. Imagine this: the invisible man wants to kill all his colleagues in the research team. That's very easy, because he trapped them in a Pentagon-secured research facility (underground) with extremely perfect security systems. The only lift has to be activated by voice, code and finger print. So the invisible man just eliminated the access codes of his colleages and voila! They were all trapped, together with a mad invisible man.
After having slaughtered all but two team members, the remaining two suddenly remembered the fact that there was an escape staircase besides the lift. That's a very early moment to remember the fact, isn't it?
First of all it made us crazy that the haunted people always took off their IR-glasses. They had a perfect tool to see an invisible man by infrared glasses, but they consequently ignored, forgot or just took off these glasses. If I were in their situation, I would have put off these tools for not a second, even if I went to the toilet or did something else. No, these people wore the glasses in their hands, while shouting into the mike "Hey, I can't see him! Where is he?" while the answer came "Take care! He's right in front of you!" That would be a moment to put on the glasses. No, the hero fires a blind shot in the suspected direction and screams in panic when attacked by the invisible man.
Another sequence was quite impressive. You may also call it a medical miracle: The invisible man tried to kill his colleague (who is his ex-wifes lover) by ramming a tool into his stomach. The victim suffers severe injuries. His lover - the invisible man's ex-wife - has a brilliant idea: She seals the open stomach with adhensive tape. Okay. Afterwards the two are trapped in a freezing chamber by the invisible man, who turns on the cooling. While the stomach-injured man lies on the ground and seems to be dying by blood loss and the cold, the woman sits there freezing and crying. At -50° degrees her tears immediately freeze to ice. Everything is covered with ice by now. This is the moment of inspiration: Instead of freezing to death, like every normal guy would do, she becomes active, constructs a huge electronic magnet out of a doorhandle and medical equipment and just opens the door of the freezing chamber. In the meantime the invisible man mixes some nitroglycerin which is stored in the lab's centrifuge. This is a situation where urgent actions are important.
The woman leaves the open-stomach-man besides a burning barrel and runs to the lift, where she wants to climb up the ladder and call for help.
It is obvious that the invisible man doesn't want her to escape, so he stops her. It results in a heavy fighting. The woman is lying on the ground. There seems to be no hope, but then! There comes the hero! Open-stomach-man has recovered from his frozen state and fights the invisible man with electic shocks. This is a dangerous action, because the three of them all stand on a wet surface. But another miracle occurs! Only the invisible man is shocked and burned, the two heroes are lying in the water and seem to be very isolated from bad influences. Lucky two!
This gives the open-stomach-man some motivation and he and his lover begin to climb up the ladder, which is only a few 100 metres high. On their way up they fight the invisible man a few more times, because it seems to be impossible to kill a man who is invisible by a flamethrower, electric shocks or shells, they have some trouble with a wild lift, but in the end they climb up and happily reach the surface. His injury seems to be forgotten (propably hanging on one hand on a ladder, surrounded by flames and a crazy lift cures deep cuts in a sensational way) and they are all happy. It seems that adhensive tape is quite great stuff for holding together open flesh. I wonder why there still is surgery in the world, maybe just because doctors want to earn more money. If they could cure serious injuries by taping them with dirty tape, they would soon be out of money. On the other hand - the movie ended at that point, we will never know if the man suffered blood poisoning afterwards. But if we are honest, we don't care.
Well, these are only a few of the most abstruse moments in this movie.
The idea was okay, the first half of the movie was okay. But the final battle was really ridiculous. It would have been funny, if they hadn't all acted as if it was a very important and serious topic. The only logical thing (okay, halfway) in this movie was the scientific side of how to become invisible. I have the strong feeling that only reason of the orgy of special effects which was fired in the last half hour of the movie was to hide the fact that they forgot one important thing: The story.
