Now you see him...

>> Hollow Man is a good little scare

by MATTHEW HAYS

Though we've seen variations on Dracula, Frankenstein and even the mummy in recent years, the creepy idea of an invisible nutbar on the loose hasn't graced the big screen in some time.

But here's Hollow Man, and it's a pleasure to report that they got the right director and the right actors to fill out a pretty solid screenplay. Kevin Bacon plays the megalomaniacal scientist, a genius who, along with his team, is assigned to a top-secret Pentagon project: learn how to make someone invisible. The team has been experimenting on animals, and while they've succeeded in making some of the creatures transparent, there are all sorts of nasty side effects (like particularly ornery behaviour).

As science-gone-wrong movies dictate, Bacon is hell-bent on trying out the invisibility serum on himself, even though it's not 100 per cent safe. What's an egomaniacal scientist to do, anyway? And, as these films dictate, he becomes even nastier when no one can see him.

Though it isn't the most unpredictable film, Hollow Man does feel fresh. Elisabeth Shue fills her role pleasantly enough, as one of the collaborating scientists and Bacon's ex-flame (she even gets to have some cool Sigourney Weaver moments in the film's final act). Bacon plays sexy evil guys to the hilt, and does so again here. And Josh Brolin, as Shue's current squeeze, is also well-cast. Special effects have improved so much in the past few years that the timing feels right; the invisibility stuff is rendered quite believable by the scientists behind the camera.

And Verhoeven is such a cheek. The man can do no wrong in my books, from his sci-fi kitsch sensibility (RoboCop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers) to his sex-drenched tales (Basic Instinct, Showgirls). Not to mention his tone, which is always so ambiguous. Does he really mean us to take this seriously? In a touch that must have been Verhoeven's, Bacon's first inclination is to grope a woman as she sleeps, knowing that when she awakens she won't be able to see him. Indeed, we are invited to leer along with Kevin, as he becomes the ultimate voyeur in his invisible state.

Again, this element of the film remains a perfect open text, operating as both a condemnation of Bacon's kinkiness and a celebration of his twisted libido at once. And, also in Verhoeven style, the director spends as much time ogling his male leads as he does his female cast members. The love scenes between Shue and Brolin are undoubtedly a bisexual's worst dilemma: who to fantasize about?

Verhoeven injects Hollow Man with some Aliens-style action in the film's final minutes, and the shift works nicely. Hollow Man is a cautionary tale we've heard before (witness a number of the films of Cronenberg), but no matter. Hollow Man is exciting enough that a lack of originality doesn't manage to puncture it.

Hollow Man opens Friday, August 4