Hollow Man 2

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Rating 1½


Directed by Claudio Fäh

Written by Joel Soisson (screenplay) and Gary Scott Thompson (story), based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson and Andrew W Marlowe

Starring Peter Facinelli, Laura Regan, Christian Slater, David McIlwraith, William MacDonald, Sarah Deakins and Jessica Harman


An invisible man, Michael Griffin, an ex-commando and alleged war criminal, played by Christian Slater, is on a killing spree. Two police detectives, Frank Turner (Peter Facinelli) and Lisa Martinez (Sarah Deakins), are assigned to protect a scientist, Maggie Dalton (Laura Regan), in her home, without being told the truth about their assignment. Slowly but surely, the secret that the military has tried to contain, primarily by rampaging around urban residential districts in armoured vehicles and attack helicopters, begins to unravel.

‘Hollow Man’, despite the presence of Kevin Bacon in the lead role, was a disappointing 2000 film, directed by Paul Verhoeven, which, despite the poor reviews, grossed $191 million worldwide against a production budget of $95 million. The sequel, which features none of the actors from the original film, was released direct to DVD in 2006.

It’s a bog-standard action film with a few visual effects to create the invisible man. It would be unfair to say there are holes in the plot – there is, more accurately, one huge chasm. Even allowing for the basic premise, there is no internal logic to it whatsoever.

The acting is generally adequate, although I was less than convinced by the performance of Laura Regan. However, this might have been the fault of the script or the direction, rather than her talents as an actress. I have seen her previously, both in films and in episodes of television shows (‘Cold Case’ and ‘Ghost Whisperer’), without forming a negative impression of her acting.

‘Hollow Man 2’ is not an entirely dislikeable film, taken for what it is; it just isn’t very good.



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