YMMV / Hollow Man

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Is Caine really that evil and crazy, or did his fellow scientists force his hand? Did the serum make him less empathetic and more psychotic, or did the power of invisibility simply give him freedom to be who and what he'd always been? Was it a combination of both? Actually noted in the film, "Was it the serum that fucked you up or was it the power?"
  • Did Caine actually rape his neighbor, or "just" terrorize and molest her? A deleted scene of invisible footprints in the carpet, away from the bed where the woman is lying limp and sobbing, would confirm the former, but the final film leaves it a bit nebulous (though it's still obviously Caine's crossing of the Moral Event Horizon).
  • Odds are, Sebastian already had dark triad tendencies in him before he became invisible, having said power merely made it easier to act on them. Give most guys invisibility and the worst they're likely to do with it is play pranks on others and maybe indulge in some voyeurism. Any dude who would go next door and rape his hot neighbor incubus-style already had a broken moral compass from the beginning.
• Complete Monster: Dr. Sebastian Caine started out as the charismatic but egoistical head scientist leading a project to test an invisibility serum. After a successful run, he lies to his superiors about the project to continue with human experiments, using himself as a guinea pig to see what it was like. Initially passing the time with pranks on his colleagues, he gradually gives in to his darker inhibitions he hinted at early on, by molesting his female colleagues and eventually raping his attractive neighbor whom he constantly spied on, reasoning no one would know. Growing more unhinged and reckless, Caine batters a dog to death when he learns his ex-girlfriend and colleague Linda is now in a relationship with fellow colleague Matt. When his mentor Kramer is told about his activities, Caine murders him and decides to kill off his staff, and sets the facility to explode; leaves one member to bleed to death; manhandles one to shoot herself before snapping her neck; stabs one to death with a crowbar; and locks Linda and Matt in a rapidly cooling freezer, making final attempts to kill them when they escape.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Kevin Bacon playing a character named Sebastian. It's also pretty funny to see him and Thanos of all people were co-workers. Or, if we want to go strictly by the same cinematic universe, then he is Cable.
• Moral Event Horizon: The invisible rape sequence. Ironically, you can see on his latex-covered face the very moment he makes the decision, when he realizes for the first time that his invisibility allows him to do whatever he likes with no fear of consequences.
• Narm: The amount of punishment Sebastian endures during the climax becomes comical rather than scary. If there's one way to make your previously threatening human villain into a farce, it's having him set on fire, bashed in the head with a crowbar, accidentally electrocuting himself, and getting caught in a giant explosion, all in rapid succession without dying. Some viewers have joked that the writers forgot he was invisible and not invincible.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: After the studio had trouble finding positive critical quotes for their post-release ad campaign, they invented a fake critic named David Manning for the purpose, and even kept using him for a few other poorly reviewed movies before getting caught.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • One of your colleagues is invisible. And naked. And insane. And right behind you. And he wants to kill you. (Rape is not off the table, either.) Trying to electrocute him (the cure) will just turn him into a mass of walking organs.
  • There's also the part of the film where Caine drags a guy into a pool and drowns him, and the guy's wife looks outside and thinks her husband just fell in.
  • The transformation sequence. It's possible that even a single drop of serum is enough. Your heart just felt warm and is tingling?
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Greg Grunberg (the pilot in Lost, Matt Parkman in Heroes) plays a supporting character.
  • Another scientist is Kim Dickens (Cassidy in Lost, Ms. Stubbs in Deadwood).
  • Rhona Mitra, the vampire in Rise of the Lycans and The Gates is the rape victim. Her vamp powers would have come in handy here. Or even the combat training she got in Doomsday.
  • Josh Brolin is Matt, seven years before he would truly hit it big in No Country for Old Men and later as Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Spiritual Adaptation: Though not an adaption of H. G. Wells' novel, many viewed this movie as a pretty decent modern remake of the The Invisible Man (1933), at least until the actual modern remake.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Many critics and viewers thought the intriguing implications and possibilities granted by invisibility were pretty much glossed over in favour of Sebastian quickly going utterly psychotic and becoming a generic, one-dimensional slasher villain, killing and raping people just because he's invisible, feeling such an outcome was the most bland and predictable.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Both the transition from/to invisibility and the invisible effects themselves are impressive. The 3D model of Kevin Bacon has since been donated for scientific research.
• The Woobie: The rape victim. She gets viciously assaulted by an unseen psychopathic assailant and left deeply traumatized. In the extended version she's seen laying in her bed sobbing in fear and humiliation.

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