Wells Story Hollowed Out
(originally posted on IMDb 4 October 2018)

"The Invisible Man" (1933) is one of the greatest entries in Universal's classic monster movie canon. Only the first two Frankenstein films are quite as good--all three being made by the same director. Like "Hollow Man," the 1933 film exploited the visual effects of its era for spectacle--in that case, it was the photographic process of traveling mattes; here, it's digital effects and CGI. Both, however, required composite images, of shots with the actors and ones without them, to create the transparency effects. "The Invisible Man" was released at a time when synchronized-sound films were still rather new as the dominant mode, having surpassed silent cinema only within the last half decade, and there were still holdouts, including Hollywood's own Charlie Chaplin. In this light, the disembodied voice of Claude Rains that occupies most of the proceedings had a bit of self-referential resonance, of actors' bodily performances--the entire system of expressions and gestures that conveyed characters in silent films vanishing--being replaced by voices. Careers were ruined in the transition to talkies, with new talent from the stage and radio being recruited. Cleverly, the film incorporated the radio--another disembodied voice--as well as the telephone into its updating and cinematic translation of the novella by H.G. Wells. So what does "Hollow Man" do to make this notion of invisibility relevant amidst its reveling in the latest special effects? Not much. Instead, we get a generic slasher movie.

The book isn't a bad read, short and full of action as it is, but I wasn't especially enthralled with reading it, so I'm surely not opposed to dramatic overhauls of its narrative, to the point that "Hollow Man" is merely "inspired" by it. The 1933 version, while more faithful to some of the story particulars, is itself a loose adaptation. Both movies invent love triangles. Both allude to the Biblical Cain as the source of the invisible man's insanity. In "Hollow Man," it's also the name of the character, but both also refer to a "caine" drug involved in the invisibility process, although the reference is rather quick here: part of the science-y mumbo- jumbo, "injecting serial protein caine 1, 2, 7," is mentioned. I would like to think that the numbers refer to "Hollow Man" following in the footsteps of the six Universal films of the 1930s and 1940s to feature the Invisible Man, but I doubt it. (The first sequel to the 1933 film, "The Invisible Man Returns" (1940) did cleverly change the drug's name from "monocaine" to "duocaine," to reflect its "duo" status as a sequel.) In the 1933 film, it's the drug that makes Griffin insane, but in "Hollow Man," the drug of invisibility is more akin to those taken in "Jekyll and Hyde," where Caine's altered appearance, or lack thereof, enables him to act upon his dormant sexual and violent perversities--a point the film makes early on with Cain's peeping Tom antics over the woman stripping in the neighboring building and his continued desire for his ex and fellow scientist.

The book was also adroit in constructing its narrative to reflect the invisibility of its protagonist via an "invisible" third-person narrator who provides a sidelong glance of the Invisible Man comprised of reports from the visible characters he interacts with. For the most part, the Invisible Man in the 1933 film is also only "seen" when interacting with visible characters. Not so in "Hollow Man," however, which begins with a visible Caine and is generally content to adopt the usual omnipresent narrative, with the occasional point-of-view perspectives from various characters and also from camera monitors. God's eyes, in other words; although, within the narrative, it's Caine and the scientist in the room above who make clunky jokes of playing God. And there's the sight-based reliance upon the modern-day horror film staple of jump scares. Somewhat more appropriate are the few supposed-surprise visual twists by the use of off-screen space--usually where a character is startled by an initially unseen presence, which may be assumed to be invisible, but which is then shown not to be.

"Hollow Man" was made on the precipice of the explosion in popularity of motion-capture acting, the norm of almost-entirely CGI-created environments and the rise of digital cinema, with such movies as the "Star Wars" prequels, "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the "Planet of the Apes" rebooted series, "Avatar" (2009) and the MCU, to name a few. Again, as in the talkie revolution, an entire form of filmmaking and performance seems to be vanishing. And "Hollow Man" appears to consider none of this. Instead, it's preoccupied with rendering, through its CGI and digital effects, visible what was formerly unseen. You know, what every other Hollywood spectacle does these days.

Of all the wasted opportunities, I may be even more disappointed by the lack of camp in "Hollow Man," considering how much there is in the 1933 film and how much is in other movies by director Paul Verhoeven--e.g. "Starship Troopers" (1997), "Showgirls" (1995) and "Basic Instinct" (1992). But, nope, we merely get horror film clichés instead.

(Included in my ranking of Invisible Man movies.)