Hollow Man 2 (2006)

Hollow Sequel. Don't Waste Your Time

Those who have seen the first Hollow Man will certainly find this "sequel" bad. The acting is poor, the sets are poor, special effects mediocre and you may not notice that Christian Slater is in it if you don't look at the credits.

The story begins with a cranky scientist who says he kills monkeys for a living being thrown around at a party by some invisible force. He nearly gets thrown out of a window, then gets his throat cut in the bathroom. All the while, there was no visible assailant. The cops arrive first, followed quickly by the military who declare that they are taking over the investigations.

Meanwhile, our hero and his female partner are tasked to protect a female a colleague of the murdered scientist. They suspect that she may be the next target. They try to secure the premises, but the female cop gets knocked out by an invisible force. The soldiers rush in and a confusing shootout follows. Our hero escapes the scene with the female scientist who tells him the whole story about a military experiment to induce invisibility. The subject of the experiment was betrayed. The buffer which was supposed to keep him alive, was never given to him. The invisible man returns and seeks revenge on the scientists and military men.

Our invisible man goes on a rampage, killing his CO and other big and bad guys. Every scene is shot in such poor lighting, both indoors and outdoors that one may really need night vision goggles to see not just the invisible man, but the visible ones as well.

There is a slight twist in the tale towards the end, but the final scene is neither scary nor exciting. Don't waste your time with this one. June 18, 2008

More like Verhoven

The original film that was directed by Paul Verhoven was a step away from his classic action film and took the form of a thriller. The sequal to the Film HollowMan 2 Takes it back ti the action genre.

Starring Christian Slater as the newest experament in the human testing of invisibility. The results are a mentally unstable killing machine on a quest of personel power and profit. A due of a scientist and a police detective team up to find and stop the killer and it soon comes down to Hollow Man Vs Hollow Man, the battle of the invisibles.

The film was a direct-to-DVD release and had significantly less promotion and propaganda than its prequal. It has recieved a standard 3 star reception in most reviews and websites. June 18, 2008

Well, Christian Slater Is an Invisible Man ... Not a Good Career Choice, I Believe

I didn't particularly find Paul Verhoeven-directed `Hollow Man' impressive and I actually thought its characters are stupid and the story was silly (tell me, who would like to be absolutely invisible without thinking about its risk?), but the plot of the sequel is even more preposterous, After the promising opening ten minutes, the film soon runs out of gas, depending on so-so set-pieces and countless plot conventions.

The story is, in short, about an invisible killing machine Griffin (played by Christian Slater who is not seen but heard almost all through the film). Griffin needs serum that would keep him alive, so he stalks the scientist who knows how to make it. There are stock characters like a determined PD detective, his partner and military officials. Peter Facinelli plays the cop Frank Turner, Laura Regan the scientist Maggie Dalton and William MacDonald the officer whose name, sorry, I don't remember.

The attack and chase scenes involving the invisible killer are passable at best with OK effects, but the film spends so much time to show Frank and Maggie running and driving around in the city without knowing what to do next. Usually directors like Michael Bay can keep entertaining us with his loud, showy and very enjoyable actions, but Claudio Fäh, as in his previous B-action film `Coronado,' takes too much time to get to the point. The stunts are decent, but the slack pace of the film damages it considerably.

But what kind of military officers and scientists would dream of creating invisible soldiers before inventing invisible weapons first? Are they supposed to fight with bare hands? In the original film CGI-enhanced actions and Kevin Bacon's over-the-top acting made us temporarily forget the silliness of the plot and numerous holes in it. It was guilty pleasure, but in the sequel, you even don't get that. January 27, 2007

Extremely Great......

Okay, this wasn't too bad for a direct to video release. The story was pretty good. Basically, this is about a dective and a doctor who must team up to stop a rouge soldier. Who is bent on getting revenge for what happened to him. When he took part in a experiment, that left him invisble. Check it out, it's a great movie!!!! September 26, 2006

Not Too Bad

The first Hollow Man was sort of an invisible man meets alien film with the title character going nuts in an underground installation. This one is more like the original Claude Raines movies. Two cops get drawn into a murder case and are immediately superceded by the military. But when one of them dies protecting someone related to the case, the lead detective, who tries so hard to be Tom Cruise, goes on a vengeance campaign to find out why his partner had to die.

There is an invisible man (unimaginatively named Griffin) who seems to be killing people. He needs a buffer that was designed by the woman being protected by the cop. A cat and mouse game follows with complications added by the military. Finally, desperate measures are called for and the film reaches its climax.

Christian Slater is the invisible man in this one but his part is quite small and his biggest scene is a flashback. The movie starts very quickly as a character is attacked at a formal function. Things continue to move quickly all the way to the end with only a few pauses to catch a breath. The only real problem I had was that there is no real reason to care about the characters. We know so little about them it is almost as if they are lab rats, just people to have things happen to. Still it is a pretty fun movie July 19, 2006

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