|
|
Film Reviews
HYDE & SEEK
By Greg Walton
Sometimes in the cinema, a gentle nudging from the filmmaker that reminds
us "it's only a movie" can be a welcome relief. Like Gremlins, Godzilla,
or Angelina Jolie's lips - it's reassuring to know that such freaks of
nature could never occur in reality.
But there comes a time when an audience just wants to believe in the
unbelievable, when their malleable minds are begging to be convinced that
the laws of nature, physics and common sense do not apply for the next two
hours.
Hollow Man, a sci-fi/slasher update on the classic mad doctor scenario,
shares that vision for the first hour, only to blasphemously ridicule it
the next.
Working off a Jekyll & Hyde template, Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) has
succeeded in 'phase shifting' a variety of lab animals - dogs, cats,
gorillas. That's just a fancy way of saying he can make the little
critters invisible. Impatient for human trials, Caine experiments on
himself against the wishes of his colorful research team, led by
ex-girlfriend, Linda (Elisabeth Shue). Although the procedure works, the
serum to return Caine to visibility fails, leaving him trapped in a
transparent state.
Egocentric and unbalanced even before the transformation, Caine starts to
go full-blown psychotic when he learns of Linda's affair with another
scientist (Josh Brolin), and begins to use his 'gift' for rather nasty
purposes.
Hollow Man starts with a shock, and methodically turns the screws with
scientific precision. The opening re-visibility serum given to a test
gorilla results in one of the most stunning effect sequences of the summer-writhing veins, organs, bone, and fur reconstituting from nothingness into a
fully realized primate. Sure, it's a shameless 5-minute piece of computer
generated showboating, but it works hard to make you believe it's not. And
it serves to make Kevin Bacon's own transformation all the more
excruciating as he begins to decompose right there on the table, screaming
in existential
agony as he dissolves one molecule at a time. Gruesome, yes, but effective
filmmaking all the same.
Director Paul Verhoeven (Showgirls, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct)
loves to
push those buttons. Laughter, anger, disgust, it's all just dandy with
him as long as you're reacting to something. At its best, Hollow Man, is a
clever morality tale with a mean streak. The Creator who becomes his own
Creation, echoes all the dangerous ambition of Frankenstein and savage fury
of his Monster rolled into one. And Bacon is good at putting on the smarmy
bad-guy grin. But once the see-thru scenario is set in place, screenwriter
Andrew Marlowe (End of Days) locks himself into slasher film conventions,
complete with an indestructible villain and plucky heroine. And
Verhoeven's frequent use of Invisible Man POV shots only reinforce the
Friday the 13th flashbacks.
After teasing your imagination with all the possibilities being invisible
would suggest, it turns out Sebastian would rather just hang out in the
ladies locker room and cop a feel. Verhoeven is no stranger to sexuality
in film (recall, if you will, Sharon Stone's infamous peek-a-boo in Basic
Instinct). He obviously relishes the voyeuristic character flaw Sebastian
presents, but never pursues the angle beyond titillating the underage
teens. Rather, by mid-film all subplots are abandoned for go-ahead gore
and cheap by the numbers knock-offs.
The real tragedy is we are given a taste of everything Hollow Man should
have been, only to have it all disappear right in front of our eyes.
GRADE: B-
CLASSICAL GAS
How much farting takes place in Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps? So
much you can smell it from two screens away. So much there should be a
strict no smoking law within a five mile radius. So much it could cause
brain damage in young children and the elderly.
If this appeals to you, by all means, get in line. If not, stop reading
now and take your Beano, 'cause Eddie Murphy is back again as Sherman
Klump, the overweight genius who split from his suave alter ego, Buddy
Love, in part one a few years back.
Now he's on the verge of patenting a fountain of youth formula, and headed
to the altar with a new sweetie (Janet Jackson, in an embarrassment beneath
her role). Desperate to rid himself of his dark side, Sherman sucks the
Buddy-DNA right out of his portly body - only to have it recombined with a
test beagle and bringing Buddy Love back into the real world.
Building off the crude cameos of Sherman's family, the Klumps, from the
first film, Eddie also returns as a host of wacky characters - Granny,
Mama, Cletus, and Ernie - hidden under a terrific make-up job by Rick
Baker. It's as these oddball eccentrics that Murphy and the movie has the
most fun.
Particularly amusing is Granny, a toothless horny toad with a mouth like
Linda Blair in The Exorcist.
As an actor, it's surprising to see Murphy actually perform beneath the
make-up, wringing a certain amount of humanity out of what are, for the
most part, cartoon inspired characters. But he's just as apt to stink up
the place with some ill timed flatulence jokes that, while amusing to your
inner child, begin to seem a little forced. And by the time a giant
hamster begins shooting poop pellets at the crowd during a scientific
convention, you know the Gross Out Film wave has finally broken.
The Klumps makes no excuses for its self-conscious style of comedy, and
neither does its audience. Either wallow in the mud with the rest of them,
or stay home and watch the Independent Film Channel.
Grade: B-
|
|
