Picking up five years after the original, Hollow Man II is a strange film to review. It is by no means an equal to the original film, lacking that superior effort's energy and top notch visual effects acumen. Yet, on some basic level, this direct to video sequel manages to entertain for an hour and a half.

This time the story centers on Detective Frank Turner, assigned to protect scientist Maggie Dalton when her life is endangered by a maverick government assassin, one Michael Griffin. If you're at all familiar with the H.G. Wells novel The Invisible Man, the assassin's last name should clue you into the fact that he's invisible. The character is played by none other than Christian Slater, and this is one of the things the film gets right. Since Slater has less screen time than anyone in the movie, his distinctive voice helps to keep him in the story.

The Facinelli character loses his partner during a botched attempt by Griffin to kill the scientist, and before you know it both Turner and Dalton are on the run, pursued by both the invisible killer and the government responsible for his existence.

The budget is obviously lower and the visuals are sparse, but effective. There's nowhere near the flair demonstrated in the first film, yet for what they had to work with, the cast and crew gave this a pretty solid go. The story is enjoyable enough and I thought the performances (especially Slater) were solid. There's a climactic fight sequence between two invisible men which unfolds during a rainstorm and the scene is handled very well. For the most part, the film has a creepy atmosphere.

However, there's no mistaking the subdued feel of this movie. Standing alone, it's a passable way to spend a rainy afternoon and is definitely superior to a lot of straight to video cheesequels I've seen in the past, but when seen back to back with the original Hollow Man, this one just falls short on both ingenuity and energy.

Still, it didn't completely wash out and I didn't mind afterwards that I had spent time veiwing the film, so I can easily grant Hollow Man II a healthy Six and a Half Out of Ten Times a Teen Home Porno Shoot Suffers a Very Creepy Interruption.

The film is available in a two disc set with the original. I recommend watching the behind the scenes doc about the visual aspects of the production. It will exponentially increase your appreciation for what the crew did in the film.

This review is for the widescreen DVD release.