Movie lovers, beware! A frightening epidemic is on the rise in the cinematic community: the widespread distribution of straight-to-DVD sequels to moderately successful movies.  Sony jumped on the bandwagon earlier with DVD additions to the Cruel Intentions and Wild Things series, and Hollow Man 2 is their latest offering. Some might question the logic behind waiting six years to come out with a sequel to a movie not many really liked to begin with -- and, speaking as one of the few who enjoyed the original Hollow Man, I still don't think this attempt at creating a new franchise had to be made at all.

As it turns out, changing Kevin Bacon into a homicidal maniac in the original Hollow Man failed to discourage the government from continued interest in a formula to make human beings invisible. After supposedly working out some of the kinks, a new test subject, Special Forces soldier Michael Griffin (Christian Slater), is chosen to test out the new and improved formula. It certainly does the trick, turning Griffin into a modern-day invisible man (and if you catch the "Griffin" reference, I'm sorry to tell you this is about as clever as the movie gets), but the deadly side effects are still active.

Finding his mind and body decaying every day, Griffin hunts down Maggie Dalton (Laura Regan), the scientist hired to clean up the original formula and who also created an antidote in case it failed. Her life in peril, Maggie goes on the run with Frank Turner (Peter Facinelli) -- a cop whose partner becomes one of Griffin's victims -- determined to evade the invisible psychopath Griffin and to blow the lid on what the government is really planning with the formula.

In Hollow Man 2, one of the characters talks about taking the original formula and removing the flaws. In comparison to its predecessor, a more appropriate comment would be that Hollow Man 2 takes the same story and, if anything, adds only more defects to the mix.

Scripted by latter-day B-movie veteran Joel Soisson (a master of unnecessary sequels having penned Highlander: Endgame and two Dracula 2000 descendants), Hollow Man 2 reeks of purposelessness and laziness with nary a minute of its running time to justify its existence. Although the story is decent enough, it's incredibly dull at times, packing nowhere near the same amount of bite as its predecessor. Some thrills are to be had, in a scant few suspenseful scenes (specifically the mall encounter near the climax), but for the most, the things the invisible Griffin does to try and jolt the audience come across as goofy and ill-conceived onscreen; if you're an unseen killer gone mental, wouldn't you try to avoid breathing on windows in peoples' rooms and randomly jumping around in front of video cameras switched to the "night vision" setting?

The visual effects are satisfactory, but I could tell not as much care was put into them as in the first film. This time, the tricks are pretty much scaled down to guns held in mid-air and a lot of doors opening by themselves.

At least the dull acting is tolerable enough, with Facinelli serving as the poor man's Keanu Reeves, Regan looking much too young for a character who has a ton of college degrees under her belt, and Slater phoning in an offscreen performance most of the time.

Hollow Man 2 isn't the worst of the recent crop of straight-to-the-video-store sequels. (I think that dishonor would have to go to Dr. Dolittle 3). This film is not completely horrible, but the most frightening thing about it is the way it leaves the door open for a potential Hollow Man 3.

MY RATING: * 1/2 (out of ****)

(Released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and rated "R' for violence, some sexuality and language.)