There are only two reasons to watch "Hollow Man" -- perhaps three if you are in fact Paul Verhoeven.

1: The special effects.

2: The mockery value.

I saw it for the effects but quickly tired of them and turned to other things. Despite the high-profile director*, eye-popping effects**, a star-studded cast***, and a huge ad campaign****, "Hollow Man" is a fairly basic bad sci-fi film.

* Banned in dozens of European countries.

** The scene where you see Kevin's whole eyeball.

*** Whatever that means.

**** This is actually all that matters.

Let's touch on scientific credibility for a second. As we all learned in grade school, light is not affected by an invisible man (this is why he is invisible), so it would not be refracted through his eyes or hit his retinas, rendering him totally blind. They touch on this briefly in the film, when Kevin wakes up after becoming invisible. He leaps up, screaming, while the other scientists run around turning off lights. "It's too bright for him," they explain to each other. "He doesn't have eyelids anymore."

What about when he was a fully visible human being? Didn't he ever open his eyes, allowing light to enter? Anyway, after more of this really scientific stuff and a few more effects, Kevin decides that he doesn't want to be invisible and escapes from the lab. Once outside, we see a few scenes of him chasing people who aren't wearing much clothing (a Paul Verhoeven staple).

Here's a tip, readers: If it is late at night, and you have just had a shower and are wearing only a bathrobe, when you hear the doorbell ring but see no one through the peephole, make sure you (1) open the door wide, very wide, (b) step outside and away from the door, and (c) wander around looking for invisible guys, (d) leaving ample time for said guys to enter your house. When you have completed all of the preceding instructions, you may go back inside.

Anyway, after a night of this, Kevin returns to the lab, where the scientists are trying to figure out how to make him visible again. He decides he likes being invisible after all, and, rather than let any outside officials find out that he is invisible, he decides to kill everyone.

He obviously never considered that he could simply leave. I mean, the government would have trouble finding an invisible guy, if they even believed the other scientists anyway. So from here on it's a pretty below-average slasher movie -- running, screaming, shaky camera work, and people getting killed off in reverse order of star quality.

Elisabeth Shue plays the oh-so-cliched tough girl who must save her injured boyfriend as everyone else dies horribly bloody deaths. For example, Kevin strangles one guy, making it look like a clean death, but then at the last minute drops him onto a sharp metal valve, where he proceeds to bleed more blood than most humans have in their entire bodies.

Another scientist runs to get him some more blood (Paul Verhoeven always wants more blood) but is ambushed by a special effect. She can't see it, and neither can the audience, but we all know that it's there, because she has be the next to go. She starts ripping blood bags open and pouring the blood on the floor (Paul Verhoeven wants more blood FASTER than humans can credibly bleed) and splashes some on Kevin, so we can see him kill her, leaving her wallowing in about 15 gallons of blood.

Elisabeth Shue then blasts him with a homemade and poorly constructed flamethrower, making him visible until the burned skin exfoliates in a really flaky effect. Not only does Kevin not die from the third-degree burns all over his body, he doesn't even slow down. Nor is he noticeably damaged when Elisabeth proceeds to kill him three more times, using a crowbar, 220V of electricity (which renders him semi-visible), and a nuclear explosion.

No, he keeps coming back for more, until she and her boyfriend start to climb the elevator shaft. With the roiling explosion below them (I actually couldn't tell if the explosion was nuclear or not; I read that it was, but it looked more like slo-mo propane on the screen), and the super-heated air not affecting their lungs, they climb to safety after dropping Kevin into the flames one more time, and then they drop a huge heavy elevator after him.

If the first four deaths didn't kill him, there's no reason why that last one should, so there's probably gonna be a sequel. Come to think of it, though, a sequel couldn't be much worse.

Response From RinkWorks:

Wow. I had no idea this movie was this bad.