The problem is that, instead of full-bodied, sympathetic characters with strong motivation, a great plot, believable dialogue and real suspense, we are given only spectacle. Such amazing feats are able to be achieved now with digital effects, that technology can dictate the premise of a film. One wonders whether Paul Verhoeven wanted to make Hollow Man because he thought it was a great story, or because he thought it was a good showcase for computer-generated graphics. And the graphics are jaw-dropping, of course. The scenes where Caine shifts between visibility and invisibility are incredible, as bones, tendons and organs vanish. The invisible doctor wandering about in a latex mask with empty eyeholes is extemely well done. Even the obligatory Big Explosion at the end is suitably spectacular. But spectacle does not make up for story.

Horror's strength as a genre is the physiological impact it produces psychologically. Fear, apprehension, shock and suspense are felt on the body, but are effects of the imagination. The stomach-loosening terror of The Blair Witch Project was famously achieved on a tiny budget. Rather than special effects, it was precisely the stripped-back rawness of the film, the provocation, rather than the saturation, of the viewer's imagination which generated its effect. The Sixth Sense featured only tantalising glimpses of the dead, and its spooky melancholy was attributable to this understatement, as much as to its awesome characterisation and intelligent plot. Even a b-classic like Event Horizon owed a lot of its terror to the fact that we were never exactly sure what happened when the ship looped out to Hell: but we imagined it was horrifying. The imagination is a powerful tool, but Verhoeven has chosen not to use it. He may have set out to make an unseen enemy film, but clearly could not resist the lure of special effects. Invisible Caine is actually visible everywhere: with heat-sensing goggles, in steam, smoke, water, fire, foam, splashed blood. That famous Kevin Bacon profile is never far from the screen.

Of course all these effects are a remarkable achievement, but it seems the expense has left little in Verhoeven's budget for more important things; like, say, a good script. The hunt-and-kill part of the plot comes after a long, tedious wait, making the whole narrative seem oddly out of proportion. The characters are so bland--Caine is the only one with any moxy among them--that we simply don't care what happens to them. Caine's ex-girlfriend Linda (Elisabeth Shue) is unbearably insipid, and delivers some of the worst dialogue in horror movie history ("Come on, I heard an explosion"). Added to this is Hollow Man's preoccupation with lowest-common-denominator titillation. There are a lot of nipples-and-lacy-panties moments (of course, when an attractive woman undresses in a neighbouring flat, it is always in front of an open window), and a fair bit of crow-bar induced splatter.

One of the most engaging moments in the film is where Caine tells a Wonder Woman and Invisible Man joke which we all heard in seventh grade--it says a lot about a film when a high point stoops that low. What cripples Hollow Man in the end are these two glaring contradictions: that a movie about invisibity should be so visually overloaded, and that such expense was laid out to achieve what amounts to only cheap thrills.

(C Kim Wilkins 2001)