HAIL, CAESAR! (2016)

Around a hour or so into HAIL, CAESAR! I thought to myself "What the hell is this movie?"  IMDb lists it as a "Comedy, Mystery", but there's nothing worth more than a smile throughout the entire thing and I have no idea what the mystery portion could have be.  Yeah, there's a kidnapping but we know who the kidnappers are right from the beginning!

Whatever.  Set in the early 1950's, HAIL, CAESAR! is the story of a Hollywood studio big wig (Josh Brolin) who spends all of his time taking care of production needs and keeping the various studio stars in line.  One day something big comes up when the main actor (George Clooney) in the studio's most expensive film disappears off the set.  Is he on a bender?  Shacked up with a dame?  Or maybe even kidnapped by Communists?  69'ing in the woods with a mountain lion?  Brolin has to get his star back while at the same time taking care of various other problems (pregnant single actress, miscast actor, a tempting job offer, etc), it's all very...blah.

I love classic Hollywood and I was excited to see a modern day film set back in 1950's Hollywood, but HAIL, CAESAR! is a dud.  It looks nice, but the story was all over the place with no true center or even likeable characters.  I kept waiting and waiting for something to develop, then I realized that the movie is already 3/4's done and it's still just flailing around like a boat lost in a storm.

With so much talent (both in front and behind the camera) I was expecting a delightful throwback mystery-comedy, kinda like the wonderful THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION, but that didn't happen.  Instead HAIL, CAESAR! simply putters along and leaves more questions than it answers.  On the bright side I really enjoyed the performances of Alden Ehrenreich and Veronica Osorio.  They were both great. Also, the lighting was nice.

Is that a white SUV off to the right?

HOLLOW MAN (2000)

Scientist Kevin Bacon, while on a strict diet of Twinkies, develops a serum that can make you invisible.  After some animal testing, he decides to try it out on himself and guess what?  It works!  Unfortunately, they can't figure out a way to make him visible again.  During this time Dr.` Bacon descends into madness and eventually starts killing people.

Coming from the director Paul Verhoeven, the man behind STARSHIP TROOPERS and ROBOCOP, I was hoping that he would have a fresh and unique vision of the invisibility story, but no, HOLLOW MAN is just you're standard stuff and by the end it's pretty much a weak slasher film with Bacon stalking people around a science lab.

Impressive special effects (for the time), Elisabeth Shue with short hair, Twinkies, Bacon listening to horrible music, a tasteless joke about Superman attempting to rape Wonder Woman, that one woman from "Nip/Tuck" topless, messy science, silly story that gets sillier as it goes along, old computers, average pace.

Worth a watch if you're really bored, but overall it's pretty forgettable.