One of the bigger buzzwords of the late '90s was "empowerment." So it should be no surprise the big buzzword of the new millennium is "entitlement" -- that is, the feeling a person gets when he or she has become too empowered.

This movie by zeitgeist-sensitive director Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct) starts off with the promise of a sharp satiric edge in a tale of entitlement run amok.

Hollow Man is an update of H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, another story of a scientist who became drunk with his own power after perfecting a formula for invisibility. But unlike that comparatively quaint sci-fi antiquity, Hollow Man follows through to show how its villain exploits his invisibility to his decidedly perverse ends.

The scientist in question is self-described genius Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon). Caine has been retained by the U.S. military to find a formula to render a human temporarily invisible. (This plot development is treated as casually as if the Pentagon regularly indulged in pursuits such as the cultivation of magic beans.)

Caine has in fact made several test animals invisible. It's not until he makes a test ape visible again that he decides to test his serum on a human: himself. Of course, to do this, he must circumvent protocol and simply browbeat his fellow scientists, including his ex-lover Linda (Elisabeth Shue) and her current lover Matt (Josh Brolin), into co-operation.

Remember how, in the old Invisible Man movies, Claude Rains would modestly fade out of sight? That won't cut it these days. Thus, Sebastian transforms by seeming to peel away, one layer at a time, in a rather cool display of current CGI technology.

As the title suggests, Caine does not deserve the privilege of his power. As he tells Linda, "You'd be surprised what you're capable of when you don't have to look at yourself in the mirror."

Inside, Caine is indeed hollow when it comes to morality and emotion. He quickly graduates from the sexual harassment of a staff veterinarian to more serious sex crime and finally to outright murder.

Always a cinematic provocateur, Verhoeven exploits the invisibility premise in a predictably lurid manner but with some justification. (Caine's sex crimes recall the psychological study that said a third of all men surveyed would commit rape if they knew for a fact they could get away with it.)

But the Dutch-born director doesn't do much with the premise beyond creating a brand-new CGI monster whose job is to stalk and kill the supporting cast. The movie eventually degenerates into yet another Alien knockoff.

That might have been more enjoyable if designated heroine Shue had the hard-as-nails presence of Sigourney Weaver. Shue doesn't even have the tough-as-nails presence of Drew Barrymore.

But the director provides the greatest disappointment. As in his last film Starship Troopers, Verhoeven downgrades the satire and ups the sex-and-violence, with the result that this may be something of a box office hit.

Given the movie this might have been, that would be a hollow victory.

(This film is rated AA)

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