Hollow Man @ Odeon, Ipswich

STARRING: Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue, Josh Brolin

VERDICT: Amazing special effects...cheesy lines...but little else

Sebastien Caine (Bacon) is the mad genius scientist; he's got it all but wants so much more, like turning himself invisible. He's turned a load of animals invisible and he knows how to turn them back, the next step is to try it on a Human. But has he told the Military in charge of the project…of course not, they'll take it over, Caine's power hungry, the guy thinks he's god, so he tries it on himself. However he hasn't bothered to tell the sexy group of scientists, he works with, about this and the way to make things visible again doesn't work on humans. So he's stuck and the invisibility is turning him completely psychotic. Got it all that...

This film could have been so good, I mean it's a movie about turning invisible, something that 'everybody' has wanted to do, and it's the one power everybody wishes they could have at one time or another. An update of the H.G Wells' InvisiblE Man, by Paul 'Robocop' Verhoeven, the man behind Starship Troopers, Showgirls, the man who many have branded a bit twisted due to the graphically violent and sick nature of his films, could have been a luxurious B-movie triumph. So why isn't it?

Well there's simply not enough there to hold the attention, a brilliant idea and great effects, but not much else. It just revolves around what happens in the scientists 'secret' laboratory, underneath a disused warehouse (clichéd…oh yes) and to be honest, I couldn't of given a toss about the other characters. However, Bacon was excellent as Caine, genius scientist turned invisible psycho (no jokes about on screen presence, please), but you wanted him to cause havoc in the outside world, but he was limited to wandering around an underground lab. Also the 'shocks' were so predictable, that this 'horror' film failed to scare, and the plot was soooo see-through, oh sorry I broke the no bad jokes about invisibility rule. Give it a miss, or wait for the first TV screening on Channel 5.

If you liked this, you'll love: 

The Fly

Inner Space

Total Recall

by ChrisM