Revealing mistake: Sebastian Caine wears a latex mask and latex gloves in order to appear near-human. The mask he wears is fairly long, and covers his neck, and the tops of his shoulders and collarbone. However, there is a scene in which Linda and Matt are helping a nauseous Sebastian reach the toilet, where he vomits (invisible fluid) into it. In this scene, when Sebastian breaks free from them and runs to the toilet, we can see that his arms and chest are also visible, skin-colored. The mask he wears only reaches the very base of his neck, so it is possible that the actor playing the invisible man did not realize that the tops of his arms and chest were visible. (00:49:20)
Hollow Man (2000)
1 revealing mistake
Directed by: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, Rhona Mitra, Kim Dickens
Plot hole: Why on earth would the military be interested in a soldier (sailor, aviator, whatever) who has to go into combat naked and unarmed, and who is detectable by an enemy equipped with a pair of cheap, mass-produced goggles? How would you treat them if they were injured? They would be utterly useless in any form of military operation, even espionage.
Janice: What was the clientele like?
Frank: This guy comes up to me and he says: "l like my women like my coffee."
Janice: People still use that line?
Frank: Maybe he meant cold and bitter.
Janice: Very funny.
Trivia: The infamous scene where Sebastian kills a dog was thoroughly investigated by the ASPCA - a non-profit animal welfare advocacy group. They reportedly felt the scene (despite being only shown in heat-vision footage) was so graphic, they suspected it might have been real. Director Paul Verhoeven ended up having to demonstrate how the scene was accomplished - star Kevin Bacon picks up a real dog, but through some slight trickery, was able to quickly switch it out with a realistic fake dog filled with stage-blood when he goes out of frame for about a second.
Question: Two songs were playing in Sebastian's car. One song as noticed twice was 'Power Struggle'. He was listening to another song later on in the movie. What was the name of this song and who plays it?
Answer: The song is Charlie Big Potato by Skunk Anansie. Very good song when played very loud.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Suggested correction: Presumably the military are interested because Sebastian's research could lead to advanced forms of invisibility technology, such as the ability to turn materials and weapons invisible for use in combat.
You cannot second guess the film like that. Sebastian is making no effort to make non-living items invisible and throughout the film we see that is not possible (why else would Sebastian have to walk about naked?). His research is on animals (and later humans) not "materials and weapons" and is based on their physiology, anatomy and metabolism. How would you inject a rifle or a tank with a serum? They don't have a bloodstream. The military wouldn't see any value at all in this research - maybe they would be interested in invisibility, but not if it was restricted to living creatures as we see here.
You know how easy it would be for an invisible person to infiltrate an enemy's compound undetected and take out powerful leaders or dictators? Especially if no-one knew the technology existed.
Easy? Impossible. First, they would be naked and unarmed. Too bad if you are trying to knock off Vladimir Putin - a taekwondo black belt - with your bare hands during a Moscow winter! Being invisible doesn't mean you can avoid making a sound or triggering a pressure plate or an infrared detector and so on and so on. Final answer - a naked, unarmed combatant would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot in any form of operation, covert or otherwise.