HOLLOW MAN

'''Hollow Man''' is a 2000 Academy award-nominated science fiction thriller film , starring Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Shue, and Josh Brolin and directed by Paul Verhoeven. The film is about a scientist who makes himself invisible, a story which is loosely inspired by H. G. Wells' ''The Invisible Man''.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Visual Effects in 2000. The sequel ''Hollow Man 2'' was released direct-to-video in 2006.

Contents

Plot

Cast

Trivia

Controversy

In other media

External links

References

Plot

Bacon plays Dr. Sebastian Caine, a brilliant but egotistical scientist who works on an invisibility serum for the US military.
Although he works on the serum virtually non-stop, he still finds time to obsess about his ex-girlfriend Linda McKay (Elisabeth Shue), another scientist on his team, and the new man in her life Matt Kensington (Josh Brolin), yet another team member. Caine and his team that also includes their animal vet Sarah Kennedy (Kim Dickens) and
Carter Abbey (Greg Grunberg), Frank Chase (Joey Slotnick) and Janice Walton (Mary Randle) eventually do figure out how to get the serum to work on animals, bringing an already invisible Gorilla back to visibility. Afterwords the team eagerly looks forward to getting clearance for clinical trials on humans.
Instead of reporting his success to the military, Caine inexplicably lies to the oversight committee including Dr. Howard Kramer, and decides to test the serum on himself. After some initial difficulties, the procedure is a success. Caine goes through some lab tests and also uses his new ability to fondle Sarah. But when it comes time to bring him back to visibility the reversion fails.
The team constructs a latex mask for Caine to wear around the lab but he eventually can't take it any more. Disobeying Carter and his own orders, Caine heads back to his apartment, scaring two little kids on the way. At his apartment temptation gets the best of him and he first spys on his neighbor (played by Rhona Mitra) and attacks her, raping her in a deleted scene.
Caine returns to the lab just as the others were planning to go after him. Linda warns him that if he leaves again she and Matt will tell Kramer what they did. Sebastian, not one to listen, uses some of the lab equipment to build a recording device to capture his heat signature in his quarters and then play it over and over in a loop. By doing this, Caine fools Frank into believing that he is still in the lab, when, in fact, Caine is out spying on Matt and Linda.
Sebastian is furious that Matt and Linda are together, and smashes their bedroom window. The two call Frank, who tells them that Caine is still in his chamber. Meanwhile Caine returns to the lab. He becomes frustrated and angered at the thought of Matt and Linda together, and when he can no longer stand the annoying bark of an invisible dog, kills the poor thing. After this the team discovers that they have been watching a recording and that Caine has been getting out without their knowledge.
Linda and Matt go to Kramer's House and confess about their experiments with Caine. Kramer is angry, and tells them that they will be cleaning out their offices. He then attempts to call the military and inform them about Caine. But Caine had followed Linda and Matt to Kramer's house. Caine tricks Kramer into leaving the house and then drowns him in his own swimming pool.
The next day Caine waits until all of the team is in the lab and then disables all of the elevator codes except for his own. He removes his clothing and latex mask and, invisible, begins to hunt them all. The team, unaware of this, go to Sebastian's quarters. Janice falls behind and Caine seizes the opportunity and strangles her with a wire.
Matt, Linda, Carter, Sarah and Frank learn what Sebastian is up to, realizing that they are the only ones who know what he is and he is, therefore, planning to get rid of them. They hide in the lab while Carter and Matt use the trank guns to go hunting for Caine in the empty hallways using heat seeking goggles. Matt shoots at a heat signature that turns out to be from a steam vent. Suddenly Carter is yanked into the air by
Caine and has his head smashed on a set of pipes. Caine almost gets Matt but Linda drags him to saftey.
Sarah and Frank find the unconscious and severely injured Carter. Sarah runs to the freezer to get blood for a transfusion. There, Caine corners her. She sprays the blood all over the room, thus rendering Caine visible. Caine tackles her and shoots her with her trank gun, then snaps her neck.
Matt, Linda and Frank hurry to the freezer and find Sarah in the freezer room. Frank sprays a fire extinguisher to expose Caine but is stabbed with a crowbar. Caine locks them both in the freezer, setting the temperature very low, and leaves to let them slowly freeze.
Caine puts on his latex mask and clothing, spending much time to ensure he looks near-human. Meanwhile, Linda dresses Matt's shallow wound with duct tape and then works out a way to escape from the freezer. Caine goes to the lab and mixes nitroglycerin to blow up the lab. Linda constructs an electromagnet using lab equipment, and uses it to open the door. She lights a fire to warm Matt and gathers the parts needed for a flame-thrower. Caine puts the nitro in a centrifuge and starts a timer. Just as he is entering the elevator to leave Linda appears and hits him with fire.
His latex and clothes burning, Caine just manages to get away. Linda uses the flame thrower to start the ceiling sprinklers, revealing Caine. The two fight; just as she is about to lose, Matt appears and hits Cain with the crowbar, and then electrocutes him.
Linda and Matt find the nitro about to explode, abandon the lab, climbing up the elevator shaft. The lab explodes filling the shaft with fire. The two are almost out when Caine appears, with only his skin invisible. He fights with Linda and she finally kills him by dropping him down the elevator shaft into the fires below.

Cast

★ Elisabeth Shue as Linda McKay [1] ★ Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Caine ★ Josh Brolin as Matthew Kensington ★ Kim Dickens as Sarah Kennedy ★ Greg Grunberg as Carter Abbey ★ Joey Slotnick as Frank Chase ★ Mary Randle as Janice Walton ★ William Devane as Dr. Howard Kramer ★ Rhona Mitra as Sebastian's neighbor ★ Pablo Espinosa as Ed, the warehouse guard ★ Margot Rose as Mrs. Martha Kramer

★ Jimmie F. Skaggs as wino ★ Jeffrey Scaperrotta as boy in car ★ Sarah Bowles as girl in car ★ Kelli Scott as mom ★ Steve Altes as dad ★ J. Patrick McCormack as general Caster ★ Darius A. Sultan as gate guard ★ Tom Woodruff Jr. as Isabelle the gorilla ★ David Vogt as helicopter pilot ★ Gary A. Hecker as gorilla (voice)

Trivia

★ Shooting was delayed while actress Elisabeth Shue recovered from a torn Achilles tendon sustained during filming.

★ An anatomically correct, totally working computer model was created of Kevin Bacon's entire body — down to the last capillary. The 3D model has since been donated to scientific researchers.

★ The tranquilizer guns used in the beginning are in fact PGPs, a very late model paintball gun.

★ A scene depicting the invisible Sebastian brutally raping his neighbor, then climbing off her as she wept was deleted because test audiences, still identifying with Sebastian, seemed to feel it was too early in the movie for him to have descended to that level of evil. Other deleted scenes included Sarah discussing with Linda and Matt the possibility that Sebastian had fondled her, Sarah confronting Sebastian about the death of the dog, and Linda being stalked by Sebastian. The latter two scenes contain footage that was used in the promotional trailers.

★ During filming, Kevin Bacon wore skin-tight costumes in green, blue, grey or black, to assist with the adding of special effects. Some of his cast mates said that the hardest part of the role was not laughing at someone painted in black, green, blue or grey, pretending to be mean.

★ For the climatic final scene between Linda and Sebastian, four elevator shafts were constructed with the following purposes:
1. One of the shafts is a small scale shaft with an inoperable elevator used for dramatic part of the scene with floor and ceiling covered with green screen. This shaft was used where Sebastian got up from the lift, Linda was kissing Sebastian before saying "Go to hell."
2. The second shaft was a ceiling shot of the elevator going up to the top and coming down again. It was composited to the ceiling of the small scale shaft for a height illusion effect.
3. The third shaft was used for the shot of an elevator going up and flames erupting and spreading from below the lab. It was composited with the floor section of the small scale shaft.
4. The last shaft was used in a shot where the elevator was moving and passes by Linda. Also this shaft was also used when Sebastian plummets down into the flames. The floor section was covered with green screen and has flame effects composited into the floor.

★ In the scene where the crew carries a half-invisible Sebastian back to the operating table, a metal skeleton was used. It was made of metal in order to make it heavy so the actors would give the impression of carrying a human body.

★ This is the first Hollywood movie by Paul Verhoeven that got an R rating in its first submission to the MPAA. His previous American films, RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), Showgirls (1995), and Starship Troopers (1997) initially received X and NC-17 ratings, of which all except Showgirls were re-cut to receive an R-rating.

★ Creature effects supervisor Tom Woodruff Jr. played the gorilla, Isabel, similar to the alien roles he played in the movies Aliens (1986), Alien³ (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997). To obtain a picture in the heat-sensitive infrared light, crew members warmed up the fur of the gorilla suit with hair dryers.

★ Director Paul Verhoeven was investigated by the ASPCA because of the scene in which Sebastian kills the dog. Verhoeven showed them the raw footage which showed Kevin Bacon handing the real dog to a vet and taking a dummy from a crew member.

★ Because of the graphic nature of the invisibility transformation scene, one trailer that included the transformation was given Mature Audiences rating by the MPAA and was allowed to be played only before R-rated films.

★ To achieve convincing visibility underwater in the pool scene, the effects crew made countless experiments with transparent objects and transparent molds of body parts underwater. In the end, Kevin Bacon's entire body, including hair, was painted black for the scene, because black gave the best contrast underwater.

★ Besides the full body suits in different colors for special effects scenes, Kevin Bacon also had to wear full-eye contact lenses the same color as the suits for most scenes.

★ Because of the graphic nature of the layer-by-layer invisibility transformation, some production publicity photos indicated a different type of transformation. One particular publicity photo had Kevin Bacon invisible from the chest down, with the remainder of his body being fully visible, which contradicted the transformation in the movie, in which his body became invisible layer by layer, each layer exposing the layer underneath.

★ To get the right reaction from the cast, Paul Verhoeven had speakers put in different places on the set, and had Kevin Bacon's voice come from different speakers, so the cast would genuinely react to the invisible character as he moved around. For the scene with the invisible gorilla, the director screamed into the microphone, imitating gorilla noises.

★ Two-thirds of the 560 special effects shots were completed by Sony ImageWorks effects house, while the remainder was done by Phil Tippett Studios.

★ The small two-way radios the crew uses toward the end of the movie are Alinco "ham" radios, possibly DJ-C5Ts.

★ Three of the Elevator Authorization codes were:
Caine, 0-0-2-7
McKay, 1-Delta-8-3-5
Kensington, 2-Romeo-1-5-9
At first the elevator replies, "Confirmed," but, later, when Caine erases everyone else's codes, the elevator replies, "Authorization Invalid — Request Denied."

★ The defibrillator used on the set is a MedTronic Physio-Control LifePak 8 defibrillator.

★ Most special effects shots involved up to seven different plates. In most cases one plate consisted of an empty shot of the scene background where the movements of an invisible Kevin Bacon were later matched.

★ In order to use the title, producers bought the rights to Dan Simmons' novel "Hollow Man." The novel has nothing to do with invisible men.

Controversy

Despite receiving mixed critical reaction, one supporter of the film at the time of its release was film critic David Manning who gave the film critical praise. In late 2001, however, Manning was revealed to be fictitious, created by Sony to fake publicity for the film.

In other media

The scene where Elisabeth Shue is locked in the freezer is spoofed in the film ''Scary Movie 2''.

External links

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★ Official Court Notice of David Manning settlement

References

1. Full Cast and Crew for Hollow Man (2000); accessed on October 1, 2006