Hollow Man comes with two sides of Kevin Bacon. There is the back Bacon and the front Bacon -- undressed both.

On other occasions, he is clothed in this Paul Verhoeven updating of The Invisible Man, a 1933 Claude Raines film that was based on an H.G. Wells sci-fi classic.

Classic this is not. Classless maybe.

What else can you count on? Hollowness.

The bare-breast frequency is pretty high, too. So are the impressive special effects of skeletal transformations and wow-inspiring digital explosions.

Add to that the chemistry of grimacing actors and lousy lines from Gary Scott Thompson and Andrew W. Marlowe.

As you may or may not know, Bacon is a scientist who tests an invisibility serum on himself, and it physically works. Unfortunately, on the mental-as-anything front, his whacked-out id supersedes his ego.

Before you can say 'Freudian projection,' the sex addict monster boy inside the man takes control, even sneaks out of the lab to tweak an unsuspecting female victim. It's a particularly tasteless Hollow Man sequence.

Back at the underground fortress passing as a secretive laboratory, computer-generated heck breaks loose when the naughty and nutty professor finally runs amok.

Fodder for his maniacal tripping happens to be his fellow scientists: One is a former girlfriend (Elisabeth Shue) shacking up with a fellow team scientist (Josh Brolin).

Uh-oh. Naturally, see-through guy blanks out in rage when he finds out his former is having intimate fun with a minion.

But wait. Before we get to the I-can't-see-him terror tactics stuff -- the crazy Hollow Man hijinks as it were -- there is the painfully slow build-up to snore through. Y'know, like establishing the characters we don't care about, showing us Washington, D.C., landmarks we couldn't care less about, and revealing Bacon's buns, which is another story all together.

A brief glimpse of frontal Bacon bits comes later, for those who need to know. And there are those.

So, anticipate that and much less.

For instance, there are ludicrous moments of exaggeration spearheaded by scientist Shue, who looks more like a founding member of the Bad Hair Club For Women. Which is just about right, since her acting is more suitable for a shampoo commercial than a motion picture thriller.

Even Bacon, usually solid and sensible, is more than a little fried as the sneering and leering villain who isn't all there.

Let's give discredit where it is due.

As another Verhoeven voyeuristic vehicle, the mostly vacant Hollow Man is a few grades above his Showgirls but far below his Basic Instinct.

(This film is rated AA)

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