'HOLLOW MAN'S' LOGIC AND CHARACTERS ARE EMPTY INSIDE.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

The T.S. Eliot poem which inspired the title, if little else, for ``Hollow Man'' begins:

``We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men / Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!''

Eliot is clearly giving those responsible for ``Hollow Man'' far too much credit. It's your standard-issue summer moron-o-rama, boasting a workable premise (cribbed, naturally, from a better movie made almost 60 years ago and itself based on an H.G. Wells novel), decent special effects and characters who would behave more intelligently than they do here were their heads actually filled with straw.

Kevin Bacon stars as Sebastian Caine, one of those hotshot government researchers who wears a cool black leather trenchcoat and cranks up the tunes as he corners hard in his Porsche convertible - you know the type. He leads a study on invisibility, overseeing some hipster scientists who look to be on loan from the WB network. Being the rebel/sociopath that he is, Sebastian, without permission, offers himself as the first there's-no-there-there human experiment; things, naturally, don't go as expected.

Though ``Hollow Man's'' press notes cite both Plato and Christopher Marlowe, the sensibility most at work here is director Paul Verhoeven's. Here's how Sebastian cashes in on his invisibility: In throwaway gags, he scares a couple of kids and confuses a homeless guy; in tediously protracted sequences, he molests a colleague's breast and apparently rapes a neighbor whose entire life consists of little more than removing her clothing while her blinds remain tantalizingly almost open. Verhoeven, as they say, likes to watch, but he's not keen on thinking - the film takes place in Washington, D.C.; wouldn't a scientist like Sebastian get a kick out of being a fly on the wall in the Oval Office or other halls of power?

Caine's mutiny, nonetheless, also extends to murder, which causes his co-workers a bit of consternation only once they realize they're next on his hit list. Elisabeth Shue and Josh Brolin - casting director Howard Feuer's idea of brilliant scientists - share above-the-title billing with Bacon; follow the traditional slasher-flick template and don't become too attached to anyone else. Apparently, invisibility also induces superhuman strength, as Sebastian, even though he's naked, becomes as insanely insurmountable a force as, say, Freddie Krueger.

OK, whatever; but here's the rub - none of these geniuses seem to be able to remember that they each have a pair of heat-sensitive goggles that would allow them to see Sebastian on the course of his lethal perambulations. That's just the most crucial lapse in logic ``Hollow Man'' boasts - there are plenty of others, which exasperated viewers will have time to tally for themselves as their patience with the pyrotechnics eventually diminishes.

Sure, the special effects - in which test subjects disappear and reappear vein by vein, organ by organ, bone by bone - are pretty impressive, but then, James Whale's 1933 ``Invisible Man'' had darn cool effects and decent story and characterizations. This is shaping up as the summer where CGI achieves endgame: Films like ``Dinosaur'' and ``The Perfect Storm'' have proved that when anything is possible in a movie, then very little will actually be capable of wowing us.

Perhaps the most dismaying spectacle available to ``Hollow Man'' viewers is watching credible, ``name'' thespians like Bacon and Shue reduced to the kind of blockheaded performances Verhoeven expertly drew from his players in amateurishly essayed productions like ``Showgirls'' and ``Starship Troopers.'' Nonetheless, T.S. Eliot was wrong about one thing: Since this is a summer movie, the world ends with a bang, an increasingly ear-splitting series of them, in fact. The whimper will be the audience's, as, battered into dull submission, it skulks benumbed from the theater.

The facts

--The film: ``Hollow Man'' (R; nudity, violence, language, sex).

--The stars: Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin.

--Behind the scenes: Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Written by Andrew W. Marlowe, based on a story by Marlowe and Gary Scott Thompson. Produced by Douglas Wick and Alan Marshall. Released by Columbia Pictures.

--Running time: One hour, 54 minutes.

--Playing: Citywide.

--Our rating: One and one half stars

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Photo:

Sebastian Caine's (Kevin Bacon) invisible face is covered in liquid latex to help him blend into society in ``Hollow Man.''