Hollow Logic
Main Cast: Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens
Director: Paul Verhoeven
I’m not one to bring logic to where it is not wanted, especially slasher films. But sci-fi/slasher films are a different story: they aim the bar slightly higher. And while the idea of this remake of The Invisible Man is sound, the execution falls short at the very end.
Sebastian Caine (Bacon) is a brilliant scientist working for the military outside of Washington, D.C. Up until now he’s had problems with the last process of his work: the ability to turn a living thing invisible, and more important, bring it safely back again. The last is a kicker. He and a band of other scientists and doctors have managed on animals, but every time they try to bring them back to visibility their “radiated” potion doesn’t work.
Until the breakthrough. Caine joins the rest: Matt Kingsington (Brolin), Linda McKay (Shue), a fellow scientist and ex-flame, a vet and a few others. The new process seems to work on an ape, so Caine decides that he should be the receiver of the next stage: working on a human being. But is the process really safe? There are objections, but he dismisses them.
And it works! Or seems to. Problem is, a consequence of the potion is madness. So Caine slowly goes mad, and ends up locking everyone in the underground facility to kill them. Yes, he had a reason, but a thin one. I think he just enjoyed killing by this time.
The first half sets us up, the second is devoted to the cat-and-mouse game, where the invisible man takes out the poor saps one by one. Of course, McKay is our hero, and she doesn’t die- even up to the end, which is implausible in the extreme. I was sort-of with them until then. Too bad, really. I could think of many non-murderous and non-illegal things to do while invisible.
I say, let this one be invisible to you.
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