The music for Hollow Man is intellectually smart at many levels, and there's ample keen strategy to consider in how the composer tackled the film, but the end result is, like several of his later scores, disconnected in quality from his prior output. Sometimes, even the best laid plans for a score can yield unsatisfying results, and such is the case here. You get a distinct sense that everything contained in the work is pieced together from other Goldsmith scores, the recording comfortably predictable in style and execution despite not containing the "it" factor from any particular genre to elevate its status. The film's story is perhaps to blame for this lack of distinction in the music, because you can hear that Goldsmith struggled to determine how much fantasy, eroticism, and horror to infuse into several of the cues, attempting to devise a suspenseful balance that ultimately doesn't allow any of his best tactics in those genres to succeed. The loss of the fantasy element is particularly acute, as the scenes involving transitions to transparency and back needed a more religiously tonal sense of majesty (and preceding anticipation) without losing the precision of science and creepiness factor. The eroticism carrying over from Basic Instinct isn't convincing, either, as it's meant to be scary and perverted rather than sexy. The composer's challenge in determining the right tone for Hollow Man is clearly evident in the wayward thematic attributions in the work. These themes and lesser motifs are smarty planned and placed throughout, but how they are expressed is not convincing, neither entertaining nor narratively illuminating. To even appreciate how complex Goldsmith's applications of these motifs truly are requires significant attention to detail, and such careful appreciation by the composer's enthusiasts may be fine on album, but such opaque execution doesn't serve the film particularly well. Some of the thematic disconnect in the score was purely intentional, as the plotline involves a dissolved romance and a main character who loses his mind. But the general musical concepts representing the mere presence of the lead character in his invisible state and the science surrounding invisibility technologically and morally could have been far more clearly defined musically, even if the former was indeed supplied a pulsating synthetic effect early on.

Among the frustrations about the score for Hollow Man is that Goldsmith was allowed an overture of sorts in which the main title cue could occupy space alone. He used the opportunity to develop a pleasantly mysterious but rather unexciting main theme for Bacon's lead, Sebastian. Goldsmith could have really accentuated the action, the science, or the suspense of the film with a memorable cue that plays without interference over the opening titles. Unfortunately, his piece is a lazy recapitulation of both Basic Instinct and The Haunting, using the pulsating piano, woodwind, and electronic rhythm from the former underneath a meandering, disembodied theme for high strings not much unlike the latter. While definitely a recognizable Goldsmith product, this theme, despite some outstanding, delayed brass counterpoint in its final statement over the titles, is far too incongruous with the demeanor of the film overall and the rest of the score to really make sense. The lack of regular use of the theme in the score is a significant but predictable problem; it is explored in early cues like "Not Right" and "What Went Wrong?" but otherwise diminishes as the eerie romanticism in the story dissolves and horror reigns. One might assume that the underlying, undulating rhythmic motions of this theme might persist as a suspense tool in the rest of the work, but Goldsmith opted to replace it with other ideas instead. There is no solid secondary character theme in Hollow Man, with "Linda & Sebastian" declining to rekindle some fire in a relationship that no longer existed in the film anyway. The composer instead offers intentionally lukewarm pleasantry with no connection to the rest of the work. Likewise, the sensuality of "The Buttons" (and others) doesn't explore any meaningful thematic extensions. There are two rhythmic motifs at work in the film that are both, ironically, more effective. The first is the "transitional motif," which is heard in the cues "Isabelle Comes Back" and "This is Science." As the gorilla appears or Sebastian disappears, the awesome, lengthy special effects sequences are treated to a bass thumping and array of prickling electronic effects that slowly increase their pace and volume as the scenes progress. There is little sense of genuine anticipation as needed in these cues, though, and there were even better sound effects in Goldsmith's library that could have been used to foreshadow the idea of invisibility.

While the transitional motif of scientific mystery is a meager representation of the fantasy element in Hollow Man, it does at least evolve into the score's other prevailing motif by the latter half. This idea builds out of the transitional motif and becomes a rambling piano and bass-element ostinato heard for the violent chasing in "The Elevator" and "The Big Climb." Its foreshadowed moments in "False Image" and "Hi Boss" could be effective if not so tired by this point in Goldsmith's career. There is also another idea of heroic inclinations introduced in "Linda Takes Action" (or the sixth minute of "Bloody Floor" on the original album's merging of cues), but this material is largely orphaned in the narrative. It's surprisingly tonal and upbeat given the nature of the scene, and it stands apart on the album. Otherwise, Hollow Man is devoid of really interesting narrative development, especially by the action cues in the middle of the film. Much of this music is as generic to Goldsmith's career as the mundane parts of Chain Reaction or Executive Decision. By the fourth minute of "Isabelle Comes Back," we hear familiar shades of The 13th Warrior, with zapping sounds from Star Trek: Insurrection abounding. The action bursts, especially with the drum pad and synthesizer combos, owe much to Total Recall but lack that score's distinct direction. By Hollow Man, the techniques of slurred brass, screeching and cascading strings, and an array of timpani to shake the floors was simply too rusty to carry the score on "that Goldsmith sound" alone. Because the score was recorded in London, the original Varèse Sarabande album ran 50 minutes and contains all meaningful highlights for casual Goldsmith listeners in the first third of its running time. A 2022 2-CD set from Intrada is intellectually intriguing but overkill as entertainment, exposing no better narrative and languishing in redundancy but offering extensive alternate takes for devotees. The long presentation teases curiosity but exacerbates Goldsmith's pull towards several genres without truly satisfying any. The quality of the mix, while still very clear, is not as resoundingly wet and well balanced as his scores of the previous few years (from Small Soldiers to The 13th Warrior), marking an end to that era of terrific-sounding Goldsmith music. No matter the mix, Hollow Man is both derivative and unexpectedly timid, a surprising way to reach the failure that the film was always tempting.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download