‘Hollow Man’ handsome, but empty > Astounding special effects outweighed by disappointing characters, plot

In theaters

HOLLOW MAN. Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Written by Andrew W. Marlowe. Running time: 114 minutes. Rated R.

Never mind the characters. The very first thing to disappear in Paul Verhoeven’s “Hollow Man” is the film’s interest in its intoxicating premise, which eventually vanishes thanks to a script more interested in blood, gore and horror-movie cliches than it is in exploring the tantalizing prospects of becoming invisible.

Without question, the film features the year’s best special effects, some of which stun in their complexity and sheer showmanship, but those moments are consistently undermined by ridiculous exchanges of dialogue that induce unintentional bursts of laughter (“Let me ask you another question.” “Is it about who’s going to be on top?”) and the unremarkable characters, none of whom is given the same careful attention to detail the special effects enjoy.

A colleague of mine recently argued that story and character development don’t matter in these sorts of films, but I couldn’t disagree more. They absolutely matter. Would “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” for instance, have become a classic if it didn’t have those characters and that story? Would “Romeo Must Die” or “Mission to Mars” have been such disappointments if better scripts and better performances had backed them? Of course not. Special effects can lift a film, but they alone can’t make the film great – or, for that matter, even good.

Such is the case with Verhoeven’s “Hollow Man,” a film that features Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Caine, an arrogant scientist who, along with a team of other scientists (played by Elisabeth Shue, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Mary Jo Randle) has discovered a formula for making people invisible.

After injecting himself with the formula, Caine does disappear in an expertly conceived, technically brilliant sequence that’s loads of fun to watch. But instead of exploring the moral ramifications of what it means for mankind to have the power of invisibility, the film instead takes the easy way out and sends Caine on a cliched killing spree.

Verhoeven has made good thrillers in the past – “Robocop” and “Total Recall.” But the satire and comedic edge that made those films so enjoyable are curiously missing here.

It’s odd: Instead of being liberated by the freedom of invisibility, “Hollow Man” is strangely burdened by it. Midway through, there’s a clear point where the film could go in either of two directions – exploration of the invisible or exploitation of it. The film chooses the latter, which, unfortunately, makes for a movie that collapses under the weight of its own weightless contrivances.

Grade: C-

COYOTE UGLY. Directed by David McNally. Written by Gina Wendkos. Running time: 101 minutes. Rated PG-13.

David McNally’s “Coyote Ugly” is like “Cocktail” on estrogen, “Flashdance” on testosterone, “42nd Street” on crack. It takes strands of each film’s genetic code and winds them around a film whose story audiences have seen countless times before: A promising, likable upstart with doe eyes and bright teeth leaves a small town for the brighter shine – and sharper bite – of a big city. Will she realize her dreams of becoming – in this case – a successful songwriter? Since the film is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the man responsible for such subtle hits as, well, “Flashdance,” it’s fair to say that audiences will know going into it that this curvaceous little pot of golden naivete (Piper Perabo) won’t ever be able to do so until she first participates in something close to a wet T-shirt contest at a popular bar known as Coyote Ugly.

“Coyote Ugly” isn’t a bad film. Even in a scene where a bunch of boozy, caterwauling women hoot and holler while setting flame to the top of a whisky-soaked bar, it has a certain knuckle-dragging charm. But it comprises so many parts and pieces of other films, it mirrors those bothersome Olsen twins in that it has no identity of its own.

Worse, the film is like watching a patchwork of movie reruns. Sitting there, you know you’ve seen all of this before – and can’t quite believe you’ve parted with eight bucks to see it all again. Amazingly, the filmmakers seem to know this and thus pay considerable attention to dressing up the shopworn script with good cinematography, sharp editing, a smattering of late-’80’s pop songs and a handful of fair performances.

With the exception of the model Tyra Banks, whose manic, hyperactive character should have been named Cleavage instead of Zoe, “Coyote Ugly” features Perabo (“The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle”) as Violet, John Goodman as her doting father, Adam Garcia as her attentive boyfriend, and Maria Bello as the bar’s ballsy owner. None of these actors pose any threat at next year’s Academy Awards, but at least they can sleep at night knowing they didn’t go belly up on the bar quite as badly as, say, Angela Bassett in “Supernova,” John Travolta in “Battlefield Earth” or the entire cast of “Hanging Up.”

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, and Tuesday and Thursday on NEWS CENTER at 5:30 and NEWS CENTER at 11.