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 ovies
of "Hollow Man 2's" ilk always make me
wonder if the screenwriters are lazy or just
uncreative. By which I mean, why do they always
dabble in the same old B-movie clichés over and
over again, seemingly unconcern about originality
in the least bit? If the culprit of these movies
isn't the Guv'ment, it's an Evil Corporation. To
wit: Evil Guv'ment/Corporation, in their quest to
achieve a goal (for the Evil Guv'ment it's always
to make the "perfect solder", while in
the case of the Evil Corporation it's always
to make a buck), has their Experiment Gone Awry
™, which results in the Experiment taking
revenge by either killing or eating everything in
sight, before returning to munch on its creators
toward the end of the movie because, being the
lazy and uncreative screenwriters they are, this
is supposed to be "poetic justice" or
some such.
It's really quite amazing how
these screenwriters, when they sit down to write
these amazingly clichéd movies, never seem to
think, "Gee, didn't 5 million other B-movie
writers already wrote this exact same movie? Maybe
I should try something a little different…
Naaaaaaah." But I digress.
"Hollow Man 2", the
indirect sequel to the 2000 movie by Paul
Verhoeven, stars former A-list actor Christian
Slater as Michael Griffin, a Special Forces
soldier who volunteers for an experimental
invisible program conducted by the Evil Guv'ment
in order to -- you guessed it -- create The
Perfect Soldier ™. As dictated by the Big Book
of B-Movie Clichés, the experiment does indeed
turn
Griffin
invisible, but with unexpected results. Years
later,
Griffin
is on the loose and appears to have gone batty,
and is determined to locate scientist Maggie
Dalton (Laura Regan), one of the researchers on
the project, and get a new batch of
"buffer" drugs needed to keep him alive.
Of course, having created him
in the first place for their own nefarious ends
(the term "national security" is thrown
around a lot, probably because the screenwriters
think it makes them look "current"), the
Evil Guv'ment is now out to kill Griffin in order
to silence him and maintain The Evil Guv'ment
Conspiracy ™ and all that good B-movie stuff.
And since they're so gosh darn evil and whatnot,
they're going to use poor Maggie as the bait to
lure in
Griffin
. That is, unless loose cannon cop Frank Turner
(Peter Facinelli) can save the day. (And if you
were wondering, Yes, Turner is indeed fond of
black leather coats and facial stubble, and he
even comes complete with a by-the-book female
partner and a superior officer who is constantly
getting "ulcers" thanks to Turner's
loose cannon type ways.)
Cripes, they're not even
trying.
Basically a rehash of all the
plot points you've seen countless times in other
Evil Guv'ment Experiment to Create the Perfect
Soldier Gone Awry ™ movies, plus a helping of
supposedly "hard-hitting" political jabs
at the current state of American national
security, "Hollow Man 2" has little
going for it besides the title. And considering
how poorly received the original was when it
premiered six years ago, you have to question even
the existence of a sequel. (And judging by the
ending of "Hollow Man 2", one gets the
feeling producer Joel Soisson is up to his old
tricks of, "If one film is good, why not
shoot two back-to-back and release them a year
apart?")
"Hollow Man 2"
doesn't even make any real great use of its
invisible man, having Griffin do little more than
run around choking or beating people to death --
so basically it's actors pretending to be beaten
or choke to death. Whoopee-do. The film's big
action sequence happens at the end, when Turner
takes the invisible serum himself and goes
invisible in order to fight
Griffin
. The fight occurs in the rain, and one suspects
that the film's entire special effects budget was
blown right there. And proving that they've at
least seen Verhoeven's original, there's even a
totally superfluous sequence where Griffin, on his
way to get Maggie, takes a little detour to watch
a couple of neighborhood kids make a porno video.
The girl in the scene does flash some natural
breasts, so I guess that's something.
There's really not a whole
lot about "Hollow Man 2" to get excited
about, and even Christian Slater seems to know
this. As the movie's only big name, Slater is
little more than a voice, appearing briefly for a
full minute of screentime before going
"invisible" again. Not bad work if you
can get it. Director Claudio Fah directs without
any real enthusiasm, and the film itself was
designed to be made on a small budget, devoid of
any real "cool" moments, with the big
climactic fight in the rain less than thrilling.
The leads are cardboard characters running through
a clichéd script, so you can't really fault them
for phoning it in. The Evil Head of the Conspiracy
is played by David McIlwraith, who gets to make
dire pronouncements and order people to be killed
"at all costs" and all that good stuff
Evil Heads of Conspiracies always do in these
movies.
But since "Hollow Man
2" is such a by-the-numbers B-movie bore, it
allowed me the time to think about this: Wouldn't
it be cool if someone made a movie about a place
where all of these failed Evil Guv'ment Experiment
to Create the Perfect Soldier Gone Awry ™ were
stored? I mean, there must be thousands of failed
experiments there, according to all the movies
about them, from invisible super soldiers to
animal super soldiers to half-man, half-mosquito
super soldiers. I'm sure there would even be bat
super soldiers, or lizard super soldiers, etc.
Think of the possibilities! I'm telling you, if
anyone wanted to make this movie, I'm sure the Sci
Fi Channel would gobble it up in a heartbeat and
make it another "Sci Fi Original Movie".
Call me, Joel Soisson. Let's
do lunch!
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