Hollow
Man, Script Review
I recently had the opportunity to read the
script to the movie HOLLOW MAN. The movie is being directed by Paul
Verhoeven and is set to be released sometime next year. HOLLOW MAN
stars; Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, William Devane and Elisabeth Shue.
The
movie follows a small group of scientists who are trying to find
a way to make living things invisible. The military is funding the
project because they want to use the technology to more effectively
spy on other nations and generally "do really bad things".
The scientists soon discover how to make things invisible, via testing
on animals, but are having problems bringing them back to the visible
world. The answer to this problem is soon discovered and the lead
scientist, Sebastian Craine, quickly volunteers to be the first
human turned invisible. However, there's a few problems involved
in this process.
First of all, it's extremely painful to become
invisible. Craine describes the process almost like being set on
fire. In fact, the team of scientists are forced to revive Craine
after he literally "dies" when given the invisibility
treatment. Secondly, the reversal process doesn't quite work on
humans (didn't see that one coming). And last of all, the invisibility
process makes the person who has become invisible quite insane.
In fact homicidally insane.
As the script evolves, Craine slowly becomes
more and more insane as he goes about using his invisibility "power"
to rape a woman and generally sneak around unnoticed. Finally Craine
decides to kill off all of the other scientists in a "lab fire"
(because only they know that the invisibility process really works)
and sneak off to cause even more mayhem on a larger scale. It's
up to the scientists to stop him before he can kill them all and
escape.
Although the premise of this movie sounds
interesting enough, the story simply borrows elements from other
stories to infuse their story with something that's "scary".
For example; we constantly can see that Craine's at a door looking
in on the occupants by his breath on the window. Wasn't this right
out of JURASSIC PARK and the 'RAPTORS? Also, the scientists have
an intricate system of infrared cameras around the complex that
allows them to track everyone via a series of "blips"
on an overlay of the building on a computer screen. Can anyone say
ALIEN?
Furthermore, there's a line in the story
that usually kills more of the characters than any other line in
movie history:
MATT:
"If we split up, can we trap him on corridor eight?"
Split up? Did the writer of the script never
see SCREAM? Even I know that splitting up's a bad idea.
Even though the story does have some good
points and ideas: we're never sure if Craine's about to attack or
if he's miles away simply because we can never see him, and the
fact that Craine's eyelids are also invisible so he can see right
through them and never enjoys any "shut eye", the script
doesn't really add anything to the movie going experience. I'm afraid
that Verhoeven's posibly got another bomb on his hands. 9/27/99
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