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This week saw two new films with Christian characters (one fictional, in Space Cowboys, and one real, in The Eyes of Tammy Faye), and two movies with scientists whose God complexes lead them to embrace their dark sides (the horror film Hollow Man and the comedy Nutty Professor II), giving Christian critics some highly charged topics to debate.

Updating the well-worn Invisible Man tales, Hollow Man gives cocky scientist Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) the power of invisibility, which sends him spiraling into a moral abyss as he discovers what he can get away with. The majority of Christian reviewers, such as Preview's Paul Bicking, slammed Hollow Man for having "no morals [and] no ethics." Others pointed out that the movie wouldn't be a morality tale if the disturbed central character was ethical. "The film title may be more a reference to his nature than to his invisibility," notices Doug Philips, guest reviewer for Christian Spotlight. "A major test of a person's inner makeup is: What would you do if no one could see you do it? [Obviously] Caine is not a good role model." Still, most agreed that the film does very little with the intriguing premise. "The plot would have been far more interesting if Sebastian wasn't locked up in the lab for most of the movie," explains Hollywood Jesus' Annette Wierstra, "and his loss of morality was more closely examined. Sebastian could have been more of an Everyman." The Dove Foundation, too, thought Caine wasn't normal enough before his transformation for audiences to step into his shoes. "Caine is not only snobbish and unapproachable, he is a deviant who spies on unsuspecting women, bullies his co-workers and presumes to be the scientific community's newest god. There's no dimension to the role. He's a jerk who goes insane." Childcare Action, however, disagreed about Caine's shades of darkness. "The character was transformed very smoothly from a light character of arrogant disregard for the rules to a dark and evil character." The review also took a forgiving tone with the movie's much-discussed transformation scenes, where the body disappears or reappears one layer at a time: "Those of us who find gore repulsive would indeed be offended by Hollow Man, but those of us who look for fine details in imagery would not be disappointed as the ape was brought back to visibility, organ by organ, vessel by vessel, bone by bone, almost hair by hair." The Dove Foundation would fall in the former category, saying that "for those still not completely desensitized by moviedom's excessive savagery, it will be a stomach-turner." Reviewers also took shots at the weak script, which "trad[es] suspense for explosions and other obvious gimmicks" ( U.S. Catholic Conference), and is filled with "ridiculous and hackneyed dialogue, matched with motivations and illogical actions usually found only in spoofs of the genre" ( Crosswalk.com's Michael Elliott).

Nutty Professor II: The Klumps tells another sort of mad scientist tale. In the original, the obese Dr. Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy) invented a formula that turned him skinny, but also gave him a mean-spirited alter ego, Buddy Love (Murphy again). Now, Klump tries to get rid of Love for good, but accidentally provides Love a body of his own to wreak havoc with. "One hopes for awhile that Sherman's struggle to rid himself of his evil side will provide a huge life lesson for teens," writes Steven Isaac of Focus on the Family. "Alas, it is not to be. Sherman discovers that to be 'whole' he must embrace his dark side rather than sever it." Crosswalk.com's Holly McClure says the film was a lost cause anyway, since "the plot is weak, the dialogue never goes beyond third-grade level and the abundance of fat and flatulent jokes ruin it for anyone who's not into that kind of humor." World magazine agrees that it's "tasteless," and The Phantom Tollbooth's J. Robert Parks laments, "it's a sad commentary when the biggest laughs arise from a enormous hamster having sex with a man."

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August (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44