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

Second best movie...

[firefly4f4]

I've seen all year behind Iron Man.

Loved the visuals, and the song scene had me nearly rolling on the theatre floor with laughter.

Disappointed

[Anonymous Coward]

I went into it with high hopes, but was largely disappointed. It seemed to barely be about hellboy. While the visuals, background and world were interesting and appealing, they seemed to me to be a completely separate franchise, that very distinctly left the world created in the first one.

Thought the "new" character was an epic disappointment as well.

Felt like the director wanted to make a movie primarily about something else, and dragged hellboy along for the ride in a bit role.

Hellboy, the movie, sucked!

[profBill]

I was amazed at the following the the original Hellboy garnered. I took my kids to see it, and we ALL hated it. To the point that, when we see a movie we don't like, we all recant "Well, at least it wasn't as bad as Hellboy". And my son is a real movie person!

I don't really know the comic, and I suspect that clouds a lot of peoples opinions of the movie, but as someone who came in fresh, Hellboy was just awful-terrible.

Hard to imagine the sequel being better (actually, I really can't imagine it being worse).

As a comparison, loved Wall-E, thought Ironman was just OK.

Re:Hellboy, the movie, sucked!

[Sancho]

I was unimpressed with the original Hellboy. I've never really been able to put my finger on why this is, but something about it just really turned me off. However, being a fan of the director and expecting amazing visuals, I went ahead and saw Hellboy 2. I thought it was far and away better than the first film, possibly due to a much understated main character. Someone else pointed out that it seemed like the movie just had Hellboy in it, but didn't really feature him--I couldn't agree more.

Regardless, if the sample set is indicative, it sounds like you just don't care for the superhero genre?

Re:Hellboy, the movie, sucked!

[Maxo-Texas]

The original, I gave a 7. This one, I give a 9.5.

It's very funny in a way available to people who are not fans of Hellboy.

Tons and tons of character stuff that would be just as fun to see a second or third time because they are not "suprise" jokes, they are character interaction humor.

I say 9.5 because the editing is a bit choppy in the first half of the movie (a bit "jarring" at time how fast a scene will end/change-- I think they shaved off 3-5 seconds too much a few times).

Re:Hellboy, the movie, sucked!

[Toonol]

great visuals, poor plot and story line, and just plain too much "YOU NEED TO CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT OR YOU'LL DIE!!!" crap in it.

I disagree. I probably share your irritation at heavy handed environmental messages pushed down on the public by corporate PR departments who wish to brand their company as progressive and caring... it's all crap, simplistic, and mostly just plain wrong.

However, I don't think that environmentalism was the point of Wall-E. Apathy was. Apathy caused the planet to go to hell, but it also destroyed human relationships, sunk the level of education and physical health, and had all sorts of detrimental effects. And while I'm personally not too concerned about the state of the environment, I am concerned about the uncaring and unaware state of humanity.

At least, that was my read. Probably we are both influenced by preconceptions.

Two camps on this movie

[Rastl]

Response to this movie is turning into two camps - love it or hate it.

I fall mildly into the 'hate it' camp. Too much of the director's vision, not enough freakin' story.

Underdeveloped characters, waaaaaaaaaaaay too much CGI, overly cluttered scenes, eco-terrorist plot. All adding up to me literally yawning my way through the movie.

The original movie appeals to me because of a strong story with supporting visual effects. This movie seems to be all about overwhelming visual effects with some story thrown in to try to pull them together.

If this is what Pan's Labyrinth is like then I'm glad I didn't waste my time in seeing it. I don't see the director as 'visionary' any more than I see M. Night Wasshisname as a visionary.

Harsh, I know. But I'm rather picky about how I spend my precious free time and wasting it on this movie just annoys me.

Re:Iron Man == "perfect A" ?

[oodaloop]

Just to show it's all a matter of perspective, I saw it as a rather UNpatriotic don't-support-the-troops kind of movie. It seemed to show war as always bad, the defense industry as crooked and evil, the war in Afghanistan pointless (we couldn't even stop the massacre in this one small town!). Also, the Iron Man saga always starts in a war-zone; it was Vietnam in the first issue, later revised to the first Gulf War, now Afghanistan. And I don't recall Iraq being in it at all. The story may have been "cheesy", but it was faithful to the comic book, more or less.

I don't want to start an argument or anything, but it just goes to show it's all a matter of opinion.

"Less than half those who ever lived have died"

[Ungrounded Lightning]

At one point in the last few decades it was estimated that, thanks to the human population explosion, more than half the human beings who had ever lived were still alive. (There were jokes about the expectation of eventual death being less than 50%. B-) )

I hear that, since then, the origin date for "humans" has been pushed back enough by additional evidence that the "less than half" estimate was discredited.

But it is an interesting thought.

(Why SHOULD people HAVE to die, after all? At least before the heat death of the universe? OK, so the machinery of the meat breaks down. But is there any inherent reason one couldn't, with sufficient improvements in technology and application of resources, repair it indefinitely? Or even rebuild and restart it after it fails? For some time now death has been, not a state, but a prognosis: That (with current medical technology) the body's systems can no longer be repaired (and if necessary restarted) to the point that it can again operate in a way recognizable as "alive".)

Re:Spoilers eh

[painehope]

On a lighter note, my insurance company actually called me up to tell me that if I took out a life insurance policy, it would reduce my car insurance enough that I would actually save about ten bucks a month. And I'd have life insurance as well.

Bear in mind, I have 2 DWIs, a billion tickets, totalled quite a few vehicles, etc. I don't know if they're crazy (and just want to sell life insurance, damn the other departments) or someone has calculated the odds on my living to see 30 and feels sorry for whoever will be making my funeral arrangements.