Hollow Man 2

Straight-to-video is a fertile ground for finding undiscovered gems or real pieces of shit – both of which come under the not-so-strict Moviegrenade! remit.

Hollow Man II falls into both categories. Well, all three, I suppose – straight to video/DVD, an it's an… undiscovered piece of shit.

The story is simple; government funded scheme to make people invisible goes haywire when invisible person goes mental. Lots of killing happen because he needs 'the buffer' to stop the invisibility serum destroying him; only one woman can make the buffer, which was denied him by the government/big business who wanted his existence kept secret so he could murder political opponents.

Into this stumbles cop and James Blunt lookalike Peter Facinelli, who really should know better. He tries to protect scientist bird, who is supposed to be hot totty but isn't. And no, she doesn't get her norks out, in case you were wondering.

So, what do you need to know? Budgetary constraints are obvious; Christian Slater is the Hollow Man in this outing, and he appears as himself for maybe six minutes of screen time; the rest, it's his voice and some dodgy-sounding heavy breathing. It's amazing he wasn't caught straight away with that asthma. His transformation uses footage from the original and more expensive movie, and scenes where the invisible is visible are kept to a bare minimum.

I kept wondering why the movie was based in Seattle; usually, when a city outside of New York or LA is used it's for a reason. This reason doesn't become apparent until the end, when Blunt-A-Like and Slater go head to head in a rainstorm. Just as well really, or two invisible men fighting would have made the shittest film climax ever.

Worst moment of the movie is right in the nonsensical middle. Scientist Bird suggests that in two hours they could be in Oregon, and no-one would know where to find them, so they would be safe. She also points out that Slater can only survive another month at most. Fuckwit copper says no, how can she say that when Slater killed his partner. No, he says, I'm going after him.

Riiiiight. So there's army and SWAT after this guy, and he's going to die in a month anyway. And you have to go after him. You twat.

Definitely one of those movie moments where you pull for the bad guy. And while it's fun in (short) parts, it's still one to avoid. Consider this a moviegrenade I jumped on for you, and thank me in your prayers.