MonsterPerfect Good idea lost in the noise

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Wizard-8 I know that Paul Verhoeven was unsatisfied by the results of the original "Hollow Man" movie (which he directed), so I am kind of mystified by why he would participate in not just a sequel, but a fairly low budget direct to DVD sequel. (Though he just acted as a producer and didn't direct this time around.) Anyway, I thought that this sequel did improve on the original movie in one aspect - it doesn't have the sour and nasty feel that happened the first time around. And while this movie had a much lower budget than the original, the special effects are often quite good for a straight to DVD movie. However, the script clearly needed some more work before shooting began. There are some dull stretches, but a more pressing problem is that there are some murky plot details that are clearly lacking proper explanation. In the end, the movie is so-so, and is only recommended for fairly undemanding viewers who can see it for free or little cost.

lemon_magic Looking back, I see that my rank for the original "Hollow Man" was something like a strong "5" (it suffered from a tacked on "second" ending that made it 10 minutes too long, some gratuitous misogyny and some bad casting choices, also it dragged in spots). This movie isn't as good (or as slick), but I feel it had some points of interest and did a few things well (different things than the first movie), and somehow that adds up to a "5" as well.Well, a foolish consistency and all that. "HM" I was a "strong 5", this one barely makes "5", but I am feeling generous.BTW, Christian Slater is "in this", but 90% of the time he's a disembodied voice and pretty much phones his part in anyway, so don't let his name in the credits pull you in. The annoying bits first: the biggest problem with HM2 is its "hero", Fascinelli. I have nothing against the guy - he's good looking and he can act - but he's all wrong for the part, and looking at that smooth pretty boy face, there's no way you believe for a moment in the beginning of the movie that he could be a top homicide detective in a big city police department.(To his credit, and maybe the director's, he seems to "harden" and settle in after the point in the movie when his partner dies;at that point, the actor may have had more to work with. For all I know, this may have been deliberate, and if so, good for him.)2nd problem is the other lead, the female research scientist, who gives such a subdued performance for most of the film that I kept wishing that Elizabeth Shue would show up and hijack the role or something. Again, part of the problem is that she just doesn't have anything interesting to do for the first 30-40 minutes or so, and after that it's all "Oh my" and "goodness me" stuff for the character. 3rd problem is that the screenwriter wants and needs the audience to forget how physics (and everyday human interaction) works. An invisible assassin works best when no one knows he's coming in the first place. But if you know he's coming...infrared and night vision, tear gas,ether, lasers, nets, sonar, bags of flour, trip wires dead falls and man traps could all be set up. I'm not an especially devious guy, but I came up with 5 ways to trap and hurt a barefoot, naked man in an enclosed space in the first 30 seconds, not to mention that if he grabbed me, I'd start breaking the fingers of the hand he grabbed me with...and he is supposedly being trailed by an elite team of scientists and SWAT members? Who try to nail him with automatic weapon fire? What about a "dogpile" of bodies in an enclosed space? Still, I could tell the director and screenwriters were trying hard to make something that was different from the original and were trying to inject some quality here and there, at least as much as the budget allowed. The "invisibility" effects were at least as good (to my eyes)as the original - or at least the director and SFX guys knew what they could pull off and knew how to use it. Some of the locations worked well, and there were a couple of plot twists and setups that were well done. The element of political corruption (originally the invisible assassin was being used to bump off enemies of the current bureaucracy instead of for national security)at least lends a bit of verisimilitude to the plot. I got HM2 as part of a 4 pack for $5, and it wasn't a bad way to kill a couple of hours late on a weeknight when cable didn't have anything I liked, and I had a nice glass or two of shiraz to keep things mellow. If your expectations aren't any higher that that...you probably won't be too disappointed.

TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews It's not as good as the first one(which wasn't quite a masterpiece, its third act was a step down), but you probably knew that already. Unfortunately, it simply isn't great by any standard. "Average" is the key-word here, with few exceptions. The effects aren't half bad, and the overall production is decent enough. There's at least a single reasonable detail in this, and there's arguably one decent action scene. It isn't entirely deprived of entertainment value. However, everything in this is one-dimensional. The plot that takes the next logical step from the original, the characters that range between bland to irritating or downright obnoxious, the whole shebang. There is little suspense or tension. It tries too hard at scaring us(and several of these are cheap jump-ones, the one that opens this being particularly stupid) and making us laugh, and it fails with every lame attempt at the latter. The script is clichéd. So many of the things done when invisible are just plain silly. The dialog varies between being nothing special and poor. Too many things don't make sense or hold up, even without thinking much about them. You have to wonder why they bothered, if this was all they could come up with. There is a bunch of moderate violence and disturbing content, relatively infrequent strong language, and equally gratuitous, a little nudity and sexuality in this(purely for the sake of eye-candy). I recommend this to those who just *gotta* have more Hollow Man horror, regardless of the quality. 5/10

ctomvelu1 Kevin Bacon and Christian Slater worked their way up in the Hollywood ranks at roughly the same time. Sort of like Jeff Daniels and Bill Pullman. Or Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton. But there's no excuse for having Slater stand in for Bacon in this dull sequel to HOLLOW MAN. A government killer is on the loose, and he's invisible. A detective and a scientist are trying to deal with the situation, but end up on the run from the mad killer. That's about all she wrote. This is a Canadian-lensed quickie, and unlike the original, the "invisible man" scenes are laughable instead of scary. Slater has appeared in some real dogs in his career, but this one takes top prize. It's actually a waste to have a guy like Slater, who can act when he wants to, attached to this in-name-only sequel, but Hollywood was thinking name value. If you can't get Bacon back, why not use Slater? Dumb logic. The dialog is atrocious, too. Skip it. I hate to think of how many millions of dollars were thrown away on this puppy.