Hellboy II: The Golden Army

also just in case the love story between hellboy & liz wasn't tacked on enough we get one that makes their unconvincing relationship seem like fuckin casablanca

ugh

disappointed

hey remember when hellboy was cynical and only was learning to drop the sarcasm because he had a crush on a girl? dont expect any of that this time

you know a movie is in trouble when one of the best things in it is seth macfarlene

without any of the down n dirty grounding of the first one

...

makes their unconvincing relationship seem like fuckin casablanca

You were convinced by Casablanca?

another thread, another time.

I'm not saying the movie's perfect by any means: the main villain's kinda lame and some plot points are rather forced or underwritten but the movie is having such fun with it all that it mostly makes you go along with it.

hey remember when hellboy was cynical and only was learning to drop the sarcasm because he had a crush on a girl? dont expect any of that this time

I don't get this at all. Isn't the point of Hellboy that he's essentially not a cynic and wants to be loved, despite his appearance and origin?

And he was plenty sarcastic in this.

maybe i'm wrong, whatever, but i still enjoyed the fuck out of this.

Isn't the point of Hellboy that he's essentially not a cynic and wants to be loved, despite his appearance and origin

print Hellboy >>>>> screen Hellboy

Eels -- bad

Barry Manilow -- good

Saw this last night...I think ethan is pretty otm. It looked great, excellent character design and production design, but everything else was reheated leftovers.

saw this last night. whole thing came off pretty flat. action scenes weren't too exciting, comedic bits were pretty lame. oh well.

Okay I'm a little o_0 at discovering Luke Goss from Bros was the bad guy.

like he was in Blade II. gotta agree trailer for this looked great but all the corny lines put me right off.

like he was in Blade II

True, but I keep forgetting del Toro did that one!

Anyway, another overlong ramble from me.

perlman was born in 1950.

and is inexplicably not a member of the sons of lee marvin.

Way disappointing. Wasn't a huge fan of the first Hellboy (well done, but just not my thing...), but this one looked interesting.

Too self-aware, too much winking at the audience, not much...excitement. Other than the first 10 minutes of the movie, I didn't feel like it ever knew where it was going.

The "drunk" scene was rock bottom.

Too big, too bright, too fast, too fake.

I just got a headache out of it, nothing else.

I really wanted to love it, too.

WHY DID THEY CHNG THE COLOUR OF THE FIRE FROM BLEU TO ORANGE???/??

I enjoyed it! From this movie, I mostly wanted wise-crackin' awesome Perlman, pretty special effects and plenty of punching and what-not, and that's what I got. I'm not really sure what you dudes were expecting - they even cut out the chaff from the first film (that newbie guy who got introduced into the BPRD got completely written out with one line who was sort of the star).

Drunk Hellboy for second act defeat, c'mon, that was funny! Giant plant elemental! Really pretty creature and set design... everywhere! The German robot character was very amusing! Selma Blair actually getting a full part! Fun times.

i really loved that fairytale puppet intro

Ned,

Nice review, but one minor correction--David Hyde Pierce didn't voice Abe Sapien in the latest movie.

was actually Jones himself apparently.

Really? Impressive if so!

yea. will say the Angel of Death was my favorite character though.

i was not disappointed by this but i wasn't really expecting anything more than cool creature design & effects (guys, the average hellboy comic is pretty skeletal, there's even less to it than this). the fatherhood/"give him something to live for" stuff was pretty corny, but what can you do.

Pretty dull. It didn't have any energy at all - the fight scenes were all boring, and Cthulhu >>>>>>> Pan's Labyrinth (and I liked PL a lot... just not in a comic book movie).

I actually thought the drunk scene was a highlight - Hellboy reading the name of the sappy love song and deadpanning "I'm gonna need a beer too" or something = lolz.

Yeah I loved the drunk scene as well -- that whole stretch was the funniest part of the movie for me (and the audience) as opposed to the random bits of quick snark.

surprised that everyone disliked this, i agree with latebloomer basically, the movie is having so much fun that i can bypass everything else

by bypass i mean ignore the shitty bits, i guess... i dunno ive never read the comic so maybe i wasnt expecting anything more? but honestly i laughed, i was invested--maybe one too many fight scenes, "people hate hellboy" never really developed.

the death-angel thing looked fuckin awesome. selma blair was way hot too.

This was kinda flat for me, for every bit of fx eye candy there was something that looked kinda lousy (hello, Hellboy as a child prologue) and the 'funny' dialogue never even got up to the level of wit displayed in even the most generic comic book/super hero movies. Like they wrote a draft with a bunch of parts that just said "sassy exchange between Hellboy and Jeffrey Tambor," then never went back and came up with anything halfway clever for anyone to say.

definitely didn't have a huge amount of fun with this one, other than the beginning and end.

also why did her flame change color

This movie made me hate steampunk.

Okay I'm a little o_0 at discovering Luke Goss from Bros was the bad guy.

-- Ned Raggett, Saturday, 12 July 2008 21:42 (2 weeks ago) Link

uh.... that just melted my brain

I'm not alone!

Cruddy, half-assed, poorly though out, and uneven/unsuccesful in tone. Still dug it. Monsters and sets were great, endless eye candy, some funny character bits, and it had a cheerful attitude toward it's own cruddiness. I also had a good time playing spot the reference (Princess Mononoke, Bekinski, Barlowe, etc.). Seems like something that would be good to catch on Sunday afternoon TV.

Okay I'm a little o_0 at discovering Luke Goss from Bros was the bad guy.

I hung around for the credits specifically to find out who played the Prince. Something in my brain seriously broke when I saw that. But, then again, good for Luke. But. Whoah.

I had lots of fun! A couple of things I had to decode - what was the point of the lecture on temper (none- just exposition of kraus' real talents so the preface to the boss fight makes sense) and why do they ALL quit, besides jeffrey tambor is even lamer in this one than in the first?

I did NOT like luke goss as the elf
I also was a little disappointed how easily the giant blue tusk badger with the fucking cool grapple hand went down.
Cathedral Head was cool. Death was so-so.

otherwise basically a blast, and inasmuch as "spot the reference" I'm pretty sure there's like three Ryuichi Sakamoto album titles hidden in the background of various shots but I'm weird.

Plus "See You Next _ednes_ay"

I really enjoyed this film. I liked the drunk singing bit too, and I love "Can't Smile Without You". I found the scar-faced elf princess quite attractive. The set design and creatures were pretty great, and overall, I'd say this film was more engaging than a lot of other summer blockbusters I've seen.

Why was the John Hurt character an old man in the intro, in 1955? He was just a youngster when he discovered Hellboy in 1944, in the first movie.

::shakes fist at hellboy series inconsistencies::

yea i thought this was rly good, and i'd forgotten the first one and have 0x interest in comicss etc.

Thought it was pretty great but felt weirdly am-dram in places - awkward pauses, badly written or delivered lines; all the scenes with the disabled goblin blacksmith character in particular seemed kinda weak.

this movie has the best special effects i've seen in a while. visually it's really crazy, almost overwhelming

o_O at negative reactions in this thread, this wasn't perfect but it was fun and engaging