Hollow Man is a 2000 science fiction horror film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Andrew W. Marlowe from a story he co-wrote with Gary Scott Thompson. The film stars Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Joey Slotnick, Mary Randle, and William Devane. It follows Sebastian Caine, a scientist who volunteers to test an experimental serum that renders him invisible. When the process cannot be reversed, he becomes increasingly unstable and violent.

Produced as a large-scale studio project with an emphasis on visual effects, the film was shot in 1999 on a budget of approximately $95 million, most of which was allocated to effects work by Sony Pictures Imageworks and Tippett Studio. Filming took place in California and the Washington, D.C. area, combining practical effects with digital compositing to depict invisibility, including motion-control photography and computer-generated imagery.

Released in the United States on August 4, 2000, Hollow Man debuted at number one at the box office and went on to gross about $190 million worldwide. The film received generally negative reviews from critics. However, its visual effects were well-received and earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 73rd Academy Awards.

A direct-to-video sequel, Hollow Man 2, starring Christian Slater and Peter Facinelli, was released in 2006.

Plot

Brilliant but narcissistic scientist Sebastian Caine develops a serum for the military that renders a subject invisible. His team includes ex-girlfriend Linda McKay, Matt Kensington, Sarah Kennedy, Janice Walton, Carter Abbey, and Frank Chase. Sebastian finally devises a means to reverse the process, which they successfully test on an invisible gorilla. Sebastian also continues to pursue Linda romantically, unaware that she is now involved with Matt.

Rather than report his success, Sebastian lies to an oversight committee, including his mentor Howard Kramer, claiming he needs more time. Intending to make history as the first invisible man, he persuades Linda and Matt to proceed with unauthorized human testing while keeping the others uninformed. The procedure succeeds, and Sebastian becomes completely invisible. He is initially overjoyed at the success and begins using his condition to spy on and prank his colleagues, but eventually progresses to sexually assaulting a sleeping Sarah. The team grows concerned about his behavior. When the reversal procedure fails and nearly kills him, Sebastian is quarantined in the lab, and the team creates a latex mask for him to wear.

Sebastian becomes frustrated both by his situation and the constant testing he must undergo, leaving the facility and returning to his apartment. There, he resumes spying on an attractive neighbor. Realizing that no one could prove he was there, Sebastian sneaks into his neighbors apartment and rapes her, before returning to the lab. Linda warns that if he leaves again, she and Matt will report the truth to the committee. Ignoring this, Sebastian rigs a device to loop a recording of his heat signature in his quarters, allowing him to leave undetected. He spies on Linda and Matt and becomes enraged upon seeing their relationship. Growing increasingly unstable, Sebastian later kills a dog used in the lab. The team discovers the looped recording and realizes Sebastian has been leaving the facility. Linda and Matt confess the unauthorized experiment to Kramer. After they leave, Sebastian, who has followed them, drowns Kramer in his pool.

The next day, Linda learns of Kramer's death just before Sebastian traps the team inside the lab by disabling the phones and elevator codes. He murders Janice, forcing the others into hiding while Matt and Carter search for him using tranquilizer guns and thermal goggles. Linda attempts to rationalize with Sebastian, who refuses to surrender the freedom and power his invisibility gives him. The team deduces that Sebastian intends to kill them all to conceal the fact that he has been made invisible. He kills Carter, Sarah, and Frank, wounds Matt, and locks him and Linda in a freezer. Linda uses a defibrillator to create an electromagnet and force the freezer door open, then constructs a flamethrower. Meanwhile, Sebastian rigs an improvised bomb using lab equipment.

As Sebastian attempts to escape via the elevator, Linda attacks him with the flamethrower, severely burning him. He survives and continues the attack. During the ensuing struggle, Matt strikes Sebastian with a crowbar. Though he recovers, Sebastian is thrown into a circuit box and electrocuted, incapacitating and rendering him partially visible.

Linda and Matt locate the bomb but cannot stop it. They climb the elevator shaft to escape just before the bomb explodes. Sebastian returns and pulls Linda onto the elevator roof before attacking her. He asks for a final kiss; during it, Linda disconnects the elevator cables, sending Sebastian falling to his death in the flames rapidly rising in the shaft. Linda and Matt escape the burning facility and are taken away by emergency responders.

Cast

  • Elisabeth Shue as Linda McKay, Sebastian's ex-girlfriend and co-worker who now has a relationship with Matt.
  • Kevin Bacon as Dr. Sebastian Caine, an ambitious molecular biologist who has developed a serum that can render the subject invisible.
  • Josh Brolin as Dr. Matthew "Matt" Kensington, Linda's new boyfriend and co-worker to both her and Sebastian.
  • Kim Dickens as Dr. Sarah Kennedy, the feisty and rational veterinarian of the team.
  • Greg Grunberg as Carter Abbey, an emergency medical technician.
  • Joey Slotnick as Frank Chase, a laboratory technician.
  • as Janice Walton, a laboratory technician.
  • William Devane as Dr. Howard Kramer, Sebastian's former mentor turned boss.
  • Rhona Mitra as Sebastian's Neighbor
  • Pablo Espinosa as Ed, the security guard working at the lab.
  • Margot Rose as Martha Kramer, Howard's wife
  • Tom Woodruff Jr. as the in-suit performer of Isabelle the Gorilla, a gorilla that was used in the invisibility experiments.
  • Gary A. Hecker as the vocal effects of Isabelle the Gorilla.

Production

Development

Following the multi-layered and controversial Starship Troopers (1997), Paul Verhoeven wanted to tone down the levels of sex and violence in his next film, aiming to make a more "conventionally commercial blockbuster". Approximately $50 million of the film's $95 million budget was reserved for visual effects work, and Tippett Studio. Of the 560 visual effects shots in the film, approximately two-thirds were worked on by SPI and the remaining third by Tippett Studio.

Filming

The film was shot in chronological order, partially due to the fact that the laboratory set would be physically blown up near the end of the story, a sequence that was captured by 14 cameras at various angles. Six weeks into filming, Elisabeth Shue tore her Achilles tendon, which shut down production on June 25 for over seven weeks. At one point, producers considered replacing her; however, shooting resumed on August 18, 1999, and ran until February 4, 2000, following her recovery. At the time of Hollow Mans release, Bacon recounted a "bad morning" on which, among other mishaps, he read a story in the press that suggested Robert Downey Jr. had been offered the film's title role.

Special effects

To achieve the effects of Sebastian being invisible, Bacon was digitally removed from the footage and each scene was shot twice: once with the actors and once without, for the background to be able to be seen through Sebastian's body.

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Inspired after his daughter bought him books on the subject of écorchés at La Specola in Florence, Verhoeven enlisted special effects supervisor Scott Anderson to create a three-dimensional digital model of the inside of Bacon's body, to create the "transformation scene" where Sebastian becomes invisible.

| genre = Orchestral film score

| length = 51:22

| label = Varèse Sarabande

| producer = Jerry Goldsmith, Paul Verhoeven

| chronology = Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack

| prev_title = The 13th Warrior

| prev_year = 1999

| next_title = Along Came a Spider

| next_year = 2001

The soundtrack for Hollow Man was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, his third collaboration with Verhoeven after Total Recall (1990) and Basic Instinct (1992). Varèse Sarabande released it on CD on July 25, 2000.

Filmtracks.com found there to be two distinct motifs: the "transitional motif" of "bass thumping and [an] array of prickling electronic effects that slowly increase their pace and volume as the scenes [of invisibility] progress", heard in "Isabelle Comes Back" and "This Is Science"; and the "rambling piano and bass-element ostinato heard for the violent chasing" in both "The Elevator" and "The Big Climb". The site pointed out "the pulsating piano, woodwind, and electronic rhythm from [Basic Instinct] underneath a meandering, disembodied theme for high strings not much unlike [The Haunting]", and judged that the "action bursts, especially with the drum pad and synthesizer combos" were akin to Goldsmith's use of those elements in Total Recall. It was the first film since Mission: Impossible 2 to top the box office for multiple weeks. After fifteen weeks of release, Hollow Man had grossed in excess of $73.2 million in North America and just over $117 million elsewhere, making a total of $190.2 million worldwide, against its $95 million production budget.

Reception

Critical response

The film received generally negative reviews from critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.

While some critics criticized the plot and acting, with some claiming it contains hallmarks of slasher films and misogynistic undertones, most critics praised the visual effects employed in making Kevin Bacon appear to be invisible, which earned the film a nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 2001 Academy Awards.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four, and complained that Verhoeven wasted potential by taking an invisible man and doing nothing more than having him go berserk. While ultimately feeling that the film is merely a slasher film with a science gimmick, Ebert praised the special effects, calling them "intriguing" and "astonishing", but felt the film lacked the "imagination and wit" of Verhoeven's best films. The film was also nominated for both Best Science Fiction Film and Best Music at the Saturn Awards and won Best Special Effects.

A fake review attributed to David Manning was revealed in late 2001 as a hoax, created by Sony to fake publicity for the film.

Director's response

Verhoeven was not happy with the movie. In 2013, he told The Hollywood Reporter: He reiterated his statement in 2014: "It is very boring. I felt that I failed to transform it. What I had made was an on-demand studio movie. I decided I did not want to do that again."

, Hollow Man is Verhoeven's final film produced by a major American production company.

Home media

Hollow Man was released on DVD and VHS in North America by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment on January 2, 2001. It was released with its widescreen theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and included various special features, including two audio commentaries—one with Verhoeven, writer Andrew W. Marlowe and Kevin Bacon, and another with composer Jerry Goldsmith and the isolated score of the film; the HBO making-of featurette "Hollow Man: Anatomy of a Thriller"; 15 mini-featurettes on the making of the film, several detailing storyboards of progress shots with commentary; three deleted scenes with commentary by Verhoeven; visual effects picture-in-picture comparisons of the raw footage with the final scene; cast and crew biographies; a teaser and a theatrical trailer. In the years that followed, both a deluxe Superbit edition was made, as well as a director's cut of the film, which restored nearly seven minutes of footage—primarily extended cuts of existing scenes including Linda and Matthew in bed, the rape scene, Sebastian killing the dog and the aftermath of Sarah being suspicious of Sebastian.

The director's cut version of the film was released on Blu-ray October 16, 2007 in 1080p. Although lacking any commentaries, it restores most other special features.

References