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Let's start with the script. It is too bad such a promising premise turns out to be more "Shallow Man" than "Hollow Man," as indeed the story starts out strong. A crack military scientific team, led by Sebastian Caine (Bacon), Matt Kensington (Josh Brolin) and one of my least favorite actresses, Elisabeth Shue as "Linda McKay," are on the verge of harnessing the power of invisibility. Having successfully tested the "reversion" process out on lab specimens, including one big ol' ornery gorilla, Bacon decides to be the first human to undergo the process. Despite going against military orders, the team assists, and soon Bacon has become the "Hollow Man."

Unfortunately, as exciting a concept as this sounds, the film's weak screenplay makes one fatal mistake it never recovers from. In order for any of the story's themes to have any sort of impact or resonance, let alone make sense, we must understand and empathize with the intellectual, physical and emotional journey the Hollow Man takes. Unfortunately, despite Bacon's strong portrayal, Caine is such a self-involved prick right from the get-go that his transformation into a supposed spiritually "hollow man" (get it?) becomes insignificant. Instead of exploring any of the many potentially intriguing themes the script purports to attempt, it quickly resorts to unscary stalking scenes, overheated "let's see what actor can yell the loudest" arguments and a ridiculous, needlessly violent climax that rip-offs off just about every other major sci-fi movie of the past 20 years.

Yes, kiddies, once again we are treated to the inevitable ALIEN-esque multiple climaxes where the latest cast of Ten Little Indians gets stalked by the unseen killer. If you think you've seen this before, and better, you have. While Verhoeven's over-the-top direction and blatant misogyny is always worth a few sad laughs (has any director in recent memory so reveled in being a total pig?) quite frankly the effects crew and Bacon deserved better than a third-rate script. Too bad, because Hollow Man could have been a timely, effective exploration of the concept of invisibility, both in a cultural and spiritual sense. If any time in recent memory needed a good, solid look at the rise of empty values and would-be dictators with a God complex, now would have been it. Unfortunately, as imagined by Verhoeven, Hollow Man doesn't even seem to try.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film's theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is presented in anamorphic video, just as it was on the original release. Within this film, there's a fortuitous scene that's remarkably suitable for a comparison between the original disc and this Superbit release; at 7:20, within an aerial shot of Washington, we find the capital building. I say fortuitous because at the top of the capital dome, there are triangular shadows extending toward one another, similar to the resolution wedge we find on such discs as the AVIA Guide to Home Theater DVD. (Click here for a side-by-side comparison.)

The thinner the triangles you can perceive and the farther together they appear, the more resolution the image has. I captured an image of the capital dome from both DVDs and they are presented side by side here. Each dome has been cropped from a larger image, then magnified by a factor of four. Note that on the Superbit DVD, the triangular shadows extend farther up the dome and are more distinct. This is a clear indication of significantly higher resolution on the Superbit disc. You'll also notice that the wooded hills behind the dome also have slightly more texture. Film grain is more apparent, but I don't consider that a flaw.

Excellent color accuracy, proper black level, revealing shadow detail, lack of chroma noise and color smearing, and the absence of compression artifacts make this a terrific transfer. The bad news is that, just as in previous Superbit releases, edge halos remain essentially unchanged; fortunately, they are modest on this particular DVD.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The original Dolby Digital track is reproduced on this Superbit DVD and the audio is simply great. Very aggressive use of surrounds, deep gut-thumping bass, highly dynamic sound effects, and pristine dialog greatly enhance the experience. Jerry Goldsmith's driving score is presented with authority and across a broad soundstage. Amazingly, Columbia TriStar still doesn't reveal on the back of the keepcase that Hollow Man features a Dolby Surround EX encoded soundtrack. One might expect that on a DVD intended to push the limits of technology, this significant feature would be mentioned. Hollow Man's very active surround channels become even more satisfying with EX decoding. The surround sound field becomes more stable and believable. It's difficult to offer specific examples without revealing important plot points, so I'll repeat just a few from our original review. As the fly orbits the laboratory, the buzz orbits your home theater. Falling water immerses you. And the film's climax is punctuated with dramatic sound effects that pull you into the action by surrounding you with highly directional audible cues. Very well done.

As with other Superbit titles, Columbia TriStar ups the ante by including a DTS track. As I've found on similar discs, the DTS track offers a more pleasing timbre and a tighter bottom end. With a loud and assertive soundtrack, such a subtle improvement can reduce listener fatigue.

To conserve bits, no additional audio tracks are available. Gone is the commentary track by Verhoeven, Bacon, and Marlowe. Gone is the isolated score with comments by Goldsmith. Optional subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Thai remain. The supplement disc offers optional subtitles in Spanish and Portuguese. English Closed Captions are also available.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

All the supplements are included on a second disc, and nothing new has been added since the original release, but some extras have been excluded. Borrowing from Pete's assessment of the supplements, Columbia has provided a mix of previously-released promotional material as well as newly-produced additional extras for a well-rounded package. Gone are the original screen-specific audio commentary with Director Paul Verhoeven, actor Kevin Bacon and screenwriter Andrew W. Marlowe, plus the isolated score. The remain extras have all been included.

Verhoeven contributes commentary to three deleted scenes, which are more of extended versions of existing scenes in the film. Verhoeven comments in video clips that these slowed down the pace of the film and simply revealed plot detail the test screening audiences had already figured out, and I had to agree. But they are here for completists, and presented in 1.85:1 non- anamorphic widescreen.

Columbia has also included the HBO First Look special Hollow Man: Anatomy Of A Thriller. Designed as a promotional piece, like most HBO specials it is slickly produced, snappily paced and sprinkled with quick onset actor sound bites and production footage. Functioning essentially as an extended commercial, it does have some cool effects and behind-the-scenes material, so is an entertaining 20-odd minutes. There are also a series of VFX Picture In Picture Comparisons, which look at three scenes "Kramer's Death," "Sprinkler Attack" and "Sebastian's Demise." These are neat little vignettes that show each action sequence before the effects and after with the original production sound. However, it is interesting that for this presentation the final effects shot is shown in a small box on the bottom right, over the full screen before shot. While this works fine for those with larger sets, if you own a small television it may be hard to make out much detail.

Since so much of the film is about the special effects, the fifteen Fleshing Out The Hollow Man behind the scenes featurettes are where things really get interesting. Each clip is a few minutes in length, totaling more than a half-hour of footage. Each section covers a particularly aspect of the physical and post production effects ("The Invisibility Formula," "Thermal Imaging," "The Gorilla Suit," etc.) These were put produced by Jeffrey Schwarz and Automat Pictures, whose work I was not familiar with. These are very well paced, high-quality segments that are often fascinating to watch. Regular readers of this site know I haven't always been that fond of CGI effects, but they really work in Hollow Man. There are some really cool effects examined here, and my only caveat is that it would have been nice to have been able to watch them all together, instead of having to manually access each clip one by one. But no matter, this is some pretty fascinating stuff. A theatrical trailer and teaser for Hollow Man complete the package.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

With the exception of an applet on the supplement disc that provides hot links to the Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment web site and to the Sony Pictures Hollow Man web site, there are no DVD- ROM features on either disc.

Parting Thoughts