Hollow Man - A great little B-movie pretending to be A-list

Yes, 'Hollow Man' is basically a retelling of the classic old story 'The Invisible Man,' only for the 2000s.  It's been made many times before and since and, although this version only really offers some pretty good special effects (for the time), it's still a lot of fun in a 'B-movie' kind of way.

Here we have a kind of 'Flatliners-esque' tale of a bunch of Government-sponsored scientists working on ways to turn living creatures invisible for the military in Washington.  Kevin Bacon is the lead scientist and, in true Jeff Goldblum from 'The Fly' style, he decides the best way to test the process would be for him to volunteer.

Naturally, things don't go to plan and who could have foreseen that being completely invisible for long periods of time could lead to mental instability (although Kevin Bacon's character was a bit bonkers to begin with!).  Therefore, soon the other scientists (mainly Elizabeth Shue and Thanos, aka Josh Brolin) have more to worry about than just figuring out a way to make gorillas visible again.

Yes, the special effects have aged, but only slightly.  They're still pretty impressive and still hold up in the whole 'B-movie-fun' environment.  Paul Verhoven ('Robocop, Total Recall' and 'Starship Troopers' - among others) is the director.  And, although I couldn't fault any of the direction on display here, it's not really THAT Paul Verhoven.  Besides the nudity (which he seems to feel the need to include in pretty much everything he does) there are no satirical cutaway adverts or anything that makes you think you're watching something done by the same creative man behind 'Robocop' and 'Starship Troopers.'

There are good films, bad films and generally just fun films.  This is totally the latter.  It doesn't really do anything different and there's nothing you probably haven't seen before, but that doesn't make it bad.  It's a simple 'popcorn' film that you can just sit back and enjoy.  I found it a good watch back in the cinema and twenty years later it's still a lot of fun (even if some of the plot holes are a little more apparent the more you think about them - which is even more reason not to bother looking too deeply into it).

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that