Hollow Man Movie Review

HOLLOW MORON
a.k.a. Hollow Man

Hollow Moron had but one redeeming quality, and that was that it so impeccably fit the Movie Club's criteria for badness. Big budget, big stars, infeasibilities galore, bad acting, bad acting, bad acting, bad acting, bad acting, and bad acting. And that concludes Hollow Moron's list of redeeming quality.

Hollow Moron's deficiencies, on the other hand, provide a much more fertile area of exploration. Let's take a look:

Bad Acting tops the list. While we don't expect much from Kevin Bacon, we do expect better than this. While we don't expect much from Elisabeth Shue, we do expect better than this. While we don't expect much from William Devane, we do expect better than this. While we don't expect much from the invisible gorilla, we do expect better than this (although it was his first acting job.) As for Josh Brolin, if he hangs around with the invisible gorilla long enough, he might stand a chance of improving, albeit a very slim one.

As for the various cousins, friends, hangers-on, groupies, extortionists, and invisible dogs who appeared as extras, while we don't expect much from them, we do expect better than this.

Infeasibilities are a close second to the bad acting, but don't confuse the term 'close second' with 'trivial' or 'insignificant'. Mount K2 is a close second to Mount Everest in altitude, but that in no way implies that K2 is just some diminutive ant hill. Au contraire! K2 is mighty and foreboding, and Hollow Moron's infeasibilities are likewise every bit as unconquerable.

Hollow Moron's "plot" (forgive the term) wouldn't normally be worth commenting on, but we of the Movie Club are ethically bound to speak of such infeasibilities when they carry the potential to harm the health of unsuspecting viewers. It a was a feckless, weak, dysfunctional, moronic, impracticable affair that barely aspired to elevate itself to the level of diluted tripe. Claude Raines, a truly dignified invisible man, would not have been amused.

That said, we move along to the transformation of Kevin Bacon after he becomes invisible via an infeasible means of vanishing. He shoots orange Hi-C into his arm, then suddenly becomes indestructible. As the "story" unfolds, he is shot, stabbed, hit in the head with a crow bar, doused in gas, burned alive, and thrown down a 100+ foot elevator shaft. Although he didn't find any of this to be particularly bothersome, a visible man having an equally bad day certainly wouldn't have fared as well.

Then there's that personality thing. Due to his invisibleness, Kevin Bacon evolves into the Cloaked Crusader, a malevolent, depraved, iniquitous, murdering rapist with a penchant for exposing himself at every opportunity (not a particularly easy thing to do, when you're invisible). And this evolution of the soul is perhaps the most dubious of all the far-fetched premises thrust upon us during this 112 minute tripe-fest on film. For we all know that Kevin Bacon could never actually undergo such great magnitudes of character improvement in such a short amount of time.

Hollow Moron was aptly titled, though it just as easily could have been called Empty Moron, Void Moron, Concave Moron, Vacant Moron, Unoccupied Moron, Orifice Moron, Crater Moron, Aperture Moron, or even Hole Moron. That last one leaves a bit of an opening itself, but some things are best left to the imagination. Hollow Moron is one of those things.

Only one question remains - are we safe from a sequel?

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