Hollow Man is something like a spinning top. It starts out with a ton of energy and the potential to go just about anywhere. As the top continues to spin, it loses energy and its path becomes more predictable. Finally, the top is wobbling so badly as it tries to keep itself upright that you're tempted just to reach out and stop it for mercy's sake.

The film comes out of the gate with some really astonishing stuff. We get to see an invisible gorilla become visible from the inside out. We get to see a man turn invisible from the outside in. In fact, these effects are so cool that they distract from the plot - who cares about why they are doing it, just show us more of it. Perhaps that was the point.

Here's what I gathered between shots of half-visible creatures: The government is funding a research group so that they can figure out how to turn invisibility on and off in a human being. Presumably, their intent is to use this technology in the military or for espionage. My question is why? By the very nature of the process, anyone invisible would have to be naked and therefore very limited to the environments they can enter. Not only that, but the movie then goes to show us how many ingenious ways one can come up with to detect an invisible man.

At the movie's open, the process of becoming invisible seems to have been perfected. It's returning to visibility that's tricky. They tried to explain why one is more difficult than the other, but I wasn't sold. The scientists finally solve the problem and successfully bring back an invisible gorilla. When it comes time to report this to the government sponsors, the lead scientist in the project, Sebastian Caine(played by Kevin Bacon), lies and tells them they still can't figure out how to bring the gorilla back. His motive seems to be little more than an unwillingness to let the top stop spinning.

Naturally, the next step is for him to test the invisibility on himself. It's here that we learn why many of the test animals reacted badly to being invisible. Imagine closing your eyes to go to sleep and not being able to tell the difference - your eyelids are invisible (which leaves me wondering: If the visible spectrum of light is passing through your body, making you invisible, wouldn't logic follow that you wouldn't be able to see anything at all?). It's here that the movie ends all pretenses of something interesting as our invisible man goes mad, becomes a rapist and starts murdering his co-workers.

Sebastain Caine's transformation to a mad killer might have been more effective if the character hadn't been made fairly unlikable in the first place. In essense, the film denies Caine any real motive, thus reducing him to the same level as Jason Voorhees or Freddie Kruger. It's here that our spinning top faulters and we see that the invisibility is simply a gimmick used to create some cheap thrills.

For a movie to start out so promising and degenerate so quickly is almost a crime. By the halfway mark, Hollow Man is nearly unwatchable and by the end, I had thoroughly regretted putting in the disc.