Hollow Man 2 (2006) – Review
While Paul Verhoven has made some of the most distinctive sci-fi movies of the 80s, 90s and 2000s, the random string of sequels and remakes that’s spun out of films such as Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers have tended to be woefully inadequate when compared to the originals. However, if films as iconic as these managed to produce vastly inferior follow-ups, what chance did a direct to video Hollow Man sequel have to break that disappointing streak?
To be fair, I’ve always been kind of fond of Verhoven’s invisible man psycho-thriller despite the fact that it’s the least of his sci-fi output by a good distance. The lengths the film went through to make a progressively rapey Kevin Bacon visible despite the fact that he’s more transparent than Casper the Ghost was legitimately mind blowing and the mean spirited attitude the film had, managed to carry it through some of its more derivative moments. However, with a stand alone sequel that nobody asked for, there’s a very good chance that the point is going to tougher to see than the titular villain.
After a scientist causes something of a scene at a cocktail party hosted by a Washington think tank, the powers that be immediately go into action. After all, this isn’t a mere case of some egghead using booze to blow off some steam from the pressures of his work – no, it turns out he was beaten and brutalised in full view of an uncomprehending room full of people before being dragged into the bathrooms by an unseen assailant and then brutally murdered. The killer is Michael Griffin, a U.S. soldier who has been injected with that funky invisibility serum from Hollow Man, but who has gone off the transparent reservation when he discovered that his see-through condition is gradually killing him.
Needing a cure known as “The Buffer” that’ll stabilise his failing organs, Griffin next targets Maggie Dalton, another scientist from the programme who could conceivably aid him; but in an attempt to draw their invisible assassin out, the corrupt people in charge use Maggie as bait while requesting two blissfully unaware Seattle detectives be assigned to watch over her. After witnessing his partner be murdered by thin air, Frank Turner manages to escape with Maggie and go on the run and soon discovers that he’s trying to keep a scientist safe from a man who could be standing right next to him at any given moment.
Pursued by both a think tank with military backing and an invisible psycho who disturbingly has to resort to nudism if he wants to sneak up on you, Frank and Maggie do what they can to stay ahead of the people searching for them. But when Griffin starts targeting Maggie’s sister as leverage, the two realise they’ll have to resort to some pretty wild tactics to stay alive. Let’s put it this way – Griffin will never see it coming…
To go back to the subject of the poor state of sequels that appeared in the wake of the Paul Verhoven originals, there’s certainly been some undisputed low points. But even when taking into account franchise killing examples such as Robocop 3 or Starship Troopers 3, there’s a good chance that Hollow Man 2 may be the worst of the worst. Gone are all the psycho-sexual threads that saw the morals of Kevin Bacon’s antagonist quickly fray when he didn’t have to look at himself in the mirror anymore and there’s certainly no room in the budget for the expansive effects that saw its invisible villain rendered partially visible thanks to the effects of smoke, water and arterial spray. What we’re left with is a strange, frequently awkward sci-fi thriller that often stumbles upon a few good ideas, but never really knows what to do with them and instead drains all the tension out of a chase movie where the hunter is tougher to spot than trying to find Wally in a non-Where’s Wally? book.
Director Claudio Fäh is one of those frequent, direct to video directors who went on to cemented their small screen credentials by going on to helm a couple of Sniper sequels, but with Hollow Man 2, he’s laughably hampered by the restrictions of the format that would even test the talents of Christopher Nolan. For a start, the only name actor in the film is Christian Slater – or should I say, Christian Slater’s voice, as he only mamages to actually be visible for two scenes in the the whole film (flashback and climax, in case you were wondering). But while the first film had the tech to still ingeniously include Kevin Bacon’s physicality (and his invisi-weiner), here we only get Slater’s disembodied voice, the occasional floating gun and some visual effects that even manage to be inferior to the “Shimmer” episode of Smallville that came out four years earlier.
We’re further hampered by the issue that our two visible leads played by Peter Facinelli (better known as the head of the Cullen clan in Twilight) and Laura Regan have virtually no chemistry whatsoever and that the movie has some pretty strange ideas about actually how to utilise invisibility. For a start, the concept of being on the run from a stalker you can’t see should be terrifying – see the entirety of Leigh Whannel’s The Invisible Man for top-notch proof – but Fäh can’t seem to do anything with it. A moment where the leads suddenly suspect that Griffin might actually be in the back seat of their car should’ve broke us out in a cold sweat and other scenes that see the antagonist attacking people in broad daylight should have driven home just how easily an invisible killer could take you out while surrounded by witnesses. However, a lot of the time, it just looks randomly silly and the notion that the movie should end with a fist fight between Griffin and a recently “invisible-d” Frank is just fucking ludicrous. Why exactly someone though it would be cool to end the film with the outlines of two people slugging it out on the rain I don’t know, but watching the blurry brawl ultimately proves to be as dramatic as watching an invisible man do other things, such as sleep, meditate or just stand really still. Worse yet, the movie doesn’t even really understand its own science as Griffin’s body is inexplicably picked up things as normal as the night vision setting on a camcorder, which is a pretty sloppy side effect for a million dollar, off-the-books military project to created the ultimate soldier.
Once again a Paul Verhoven movie spawns a direct to video sequel that just can’t hope to even begin to approach the original. But while that would be an understandably impossible task for a Robocop or a Starship Troopers follow up, the fact that this sequel can’t hope to come remotely close to Hollow Man shows exactly how hollow the movie truly is. Lacking anything approaching thrills, spills, scares, or even vague interest, this is one invisible man that demands not to be seen…
Not even the non-appearance of Christian Slater is enough to make this unasked for vehicle even remotely gripping. While it impressively makes the terrifying notion of an invisible stalker relatively bland, it’s flat direction, stodgy script and bored performances means that if there ever was a good film buried here, I simply just can’t see it.
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#2000s #2006 #ChristianSlater #ClaudioFäh #FilmReview #HollowMan #HollowMan2 #JessicaHarmon #LauraRegan #PeterFacinelli #SciFi #Thriller #WilliamMacDonald
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