Movie Review, Hellboy II

Although I'm not sure the corporate overlords will let me retroactively expense a movie ticket, I wanted to take a few minutes to write my review of Hellboy II. It's been a pretty good summer for movies already: but Wall-E and Iron Man were pretty much perfect A movies. I was a big fan of the original Hellboy comic, the first movie, and of Pan's Labyrinth- my fear was that it could only go downhill. And I was wrong. VERY wrong. Read on for my review which will be mostly spoiler free. Getting a babysitter is enough work that I don't get to see nearly as many movies these days as I would like. But I knew Hellboy II had to be sitter-worthy. But I was scared going in. I always thought of Hellboy as being a comic with thick chunky lines. Bold colors. Broad brush strokes. Guillermo Del Toro's previous film is Pan's Labyrinth, and if ever a film maker has made a movie with detailed, intricate, subtle work, it was him. I was afraid that he would take a film that was so unlike the comic book that I would lose out on a favorite director and a favorite comic book at the same time. But i was so wrong.

The movie starts off far more funny than the first Hellboy. This is very much in keeping with the quirky ad campaign that has been promoting the film (the inside the actor's studio commercial for example is quite funny). Hellboy is once again Ron Pearlman- the genius bit of casting that made the first movie so great is a huge win for any sequel. He's tired of working for the BPRD in secret and is going out of his way to be spotted by the real world. But a mythos of ancient elves is working to retrieve and unify some widgets to awaken a golden army of indestructible robots, and it's up to our heroes to stop it from happening.

The elven world is very much Del Toro's designs. Likewise, an extended sequence through a secret troll market hidden under the brooklyn bridge gives him a great canvas to paint his stylistic genius. And seeing the big and clumsy Hellboy smash through it is incredibly satisfying. The action sequences are all excellent, and the final robot battle is very fun and well done.

All the while this is done with some nice plot twists for the major characters. A love interest for Abe comes along. A new good guy is sent in from the BPRD to reign in our uncontrollable hero: Krauss is voiced by Seth Macfarlane basically doing his fish char from American Dad, but inside a wacky suit controlled by ectoplasm vapors. Selma Blair is back as Liz: they give her some good lines and a few good sequences, but she's mainly a support role.

So Guillermo Del Toro was able to work within Mike Mignola's world. He put his own thumbprints all over the work, and the whole comes out better than the sum of the parts. And this makes me all the more excited for the Hobbit, where I have all the same concerns: Tolkein and Jackson will give him even bigger shoes to fill, and now I think he can do it.

Comments

Also the First Hellboy

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Taco seems to make the same mistake that I hear other people saying. Guillermo Del Toro, was also largely responsible for the first Hellboy movie; writing the screenplay and directing.

I do think he was given much more free reign on this one, and is reflected in the things Taco commented about.

don't waste your money

[splatter]

Saw it this weekend. The plot was long & drawn out. A little over a 2 hour film with all the trailers. The love interest plot was cheesy, as were the elves. Visual effects and the actor playing hell boy was good, new actor playing fish stick. German frauss

Don't worry about the spoilers, you know whats going to happen by 20 min into the film, the plot is pretty translucent. Not a whole lot of new ideas.
1) LOTR man / elf pact gone wrong - Check
2) One crown to rule them all (need I say more) -check
3) Goofy (corsecan brother's with out the weed) twins feeling each others pain - check
4) Secret withheld by girl but known by mind reader until he spills it - check
5) What is with these freaks heads? (seriously castles?)
6) New agent hard nosed / by the book then turns rebel with the group.

I could go on....
 

Re:Two camps on this movie

[Lord Apathy]

You didn't miss anything with Pan's Labyrinth. There was no english sound track so if you didn't speak spannish you had to fight the subtitles to understand it. In a movie with visuals like that you can miss important stuff on the screen while reading.

As for the story, it sucked.

Re:How well does it stand without the original?

[mshannon78660]

My wife had neither seen the first Hellboy movie, nor is she much of a fan of comic book movies in general. However, she really enjoyed this. There's an especially good scene with Abe and Hellboy and lots of Tecate that had us both just about falling out of our seats, we were laughing so hard.

Watched it last night...

[DarthVain]

Just saw it last night.

I am a Hellboy fan, and have seen the first movie.

I enjoyed Hellboy 2 last night, it was quite good. Worth a trip to the theater.

Lots of action, funny parts, plenty of beautiful cinematography, good acting. Pretty much can't go wrong.

If I really wanted to be a hard critic there were a few things I could say.

1) So much eye candy. In some parts there was so much beautiful cinematography and action going on it was hard to take it all in. It makes me want to watch it again so I can see in more detail everything that is going on.

2) It seemed to me that a lot of star trek red shirts (BPRD normal human agents) get killed off and the main characters don't seem too upset. Could be they are just used to it by now, came across more callous than it should have been I thought.

3) I didn't buy into Abe's love interest 100%. Though I could rationalize it perhaps that he is inexperienced in love and perhaps more infatuated or desperate so I can let it slide.

Oh and I also thought Jeffrey Tambor was very good in his role. I also really liked how the very beginning of the movie started, though I was initially a bit skeptical. Very Creative. There are also a few laugh your ass off parts which are lots of fun, particularly in a theater setting.

Re:If you are 11 years old

[Chris Burke]

Iron Man is a "perfect A" movie if you are like 11 years old.

Maybe I am. It depends. How old were you when you got the stick shoved up your ass?

Re:Two camps on this movie

[flitty]

Yes, the "elf who lives in the forest" pissed about humans destroying the forest, pointing to the large "forest elemental" and saying "Shoot it, isn't that what you really want?" was too suble to pick up on the environmental leanings.

I started out liking the movie quite a bit during it, but the more I thought about it afterword, it was just ok, not great. Plot holes you could drive a truck through and Selma Blair's Acting should have been fixed before this came out and kept it from being a much better movie. The campy comedy works, which was nice. See the movie, but don't expect awesomeness.