Review by Kelly Parks

HOLLOW MAN 2 - 2006 Columbia Pictures Rated: USA: R

Very late at night, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a commercial for HOLLOW MAN 2. And I thought, “A direct-to-DVD sequel to HOLLOW MAN? Did somebody lose a bet?” But that’s not fair so forget I said it.

HOLLOW MAN 2 was directed by Claudio Fäh and written by Joel Soisson (DRACULA 2000).

It’s five years later, since the discovery and disaster (ha!) of the first movie. The story opens with a fancy party. One guest (John Shaw) is minding his own business when he is first accosted and then attacked by something invisible. The attacker follows him into the bathroom and a disembodied voice demands information about “the buffer.” The terrified man says the buffer can only be made by Maggie Dalton (Laura Regan: UNBREAKABLE). That’s the last thing he ever says.

His death is investigated by detective Frank Turner (Peter Facinelli: SUPERNOVA, THE SCORPION KING) and detective Lisa Martinez (Sarah Deakins: ALONE IN THE DARK), but they barely get started when the military/homeland security shows up and invokes the Patriot Act (which carries no such provision and doesn’t remotely apply to this movie) to take over.

The Feds are accompanied by Dr. William Reisner (David McIlwraith: FINAL ASSIGNMENT, THE VINDICATOR, VAMPIRE HIGH [TV]) and his appearance answered a question I had from the start. You see in movies like this the bad guys are always either:

a) an Evil Corporation
b) an Evil Government Agency
c) an Evil Corporation under contract to an Evil Government Agency

In this case it’s “c”. Reisner’s company re-started the last movie’s invisibility potion under contract to the military.

The detectives are allowed to stay involved, however, and are assigned as bodyguards to Maggie Dalton. They seem competent but are no match for an invisible assassin. The invisible guy’s voice sounds familiar but I can’t quite place him.

The whole thing was a set up, with Maggie as bait. Troops swarm in and Frank decides to be a cowboy and sneaks away with Maggie. This results in Frank and Maggie being pursued by the military, the cops and the invisible guy, who seems to magically be everywhere at once. Damn, he sounds familiar.

Maggie reveals that the invisibility potion caused a variety of horrible side-effects (including paranoid delusions) and that it was her job to develop the “buffer” – a drug that held off the side effects. Because once you’re invisible you mostly stay that way forever.

But why do the bad guys want Maggie (and now Frank) dead? And why is the invisible guy after her too, killing anyone who gets in his way? And why are the special effects so bad? It’s 2006 for crying out loud!

I can’t tell you that but I can tell you if the movie sucks or not and I also finally realized who’s doing the voice of the invisible guy so I’ll tell you that too. Right after a quick

!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
The writer of this movie apparently didn’t actually watch the last movie because he changed the method of invisibility from “making you out of phase with normal matter on a quantum level” to “making you transparent”. The out of phase thing doesn’t really mean anything but it makes the concept of actual invisibility more believable (in a suspension-of-disbelief way) for that reason. Being transparent, on the other hand, would make you see-through but still pretty visible as light refracted through you every which way.

But enough of that pseudo-scientific nonsense. The simple fact is this is a very bad movie. Cliché after cliché, uninspired dialogue and bad acting. In that sense it reminded me of another very bad movie I once saw – a movie one of the cast members here was also in (see above) called ALONE IN THE DARK. Man, was that a bad movie. It also marked a low point in the career of Christian Slater (INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE), who just happens to be the invisible guy in this very bad movie. A new low, Mr. Slater.

HOLLOW MAN 2 gets just one shriek girl.

This review copyright 2006 E.C.McMullen Jr.



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