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Hellboy II: The Golden Army

So I go and check out Hellboy II last Saturday.  Little late writing about it, I know.

I liked the first Hellboy, even though it was a comic I didn’t read – I went and watched it out of morbid curiosity.  Well, if you liked Hellboy I, it’s probably worthwhile to watch the second one.  Whether you’ll favor # 1 or #2 is up in the air in my opinion.

The monster design and special effects in Hellboy II are top notch, I will give it credit there first off.  If there was going to be real life demon men, fish men, tooth fairies (I’m not making this up), forest gods and pale ninja princes, this is probably what they would look like.  If not, it should be.

No one is perfect though and our “big red” friend here is no different.  “Red” is used when addressing “Hellboy” throughout the movie.  I’m not sure what other kind of nick name you would assume for a old red demon man with a rock for a hand, but the nickname “red” was believable until it was used in conjunction with “blue” when referring to “red’s” friend Abe – the fish guy.  Now all of a sudden we have “red” and “blue” and all of a sudden things start feeling like some kind of fraternity you’re not invited too.  Everyone has nicknames but you.

Story wise I liked the first one better myself, it felt more complete and thought out.  Hellboy II seems like it’s trying to make everyone the center of attention and not giving enough of it to any deserving character.  I would have liked to make a joke about the movie being called the “the golden army” out of the idea of a demon militia pissing all over each other but since they explain the golden army in the first 60 seconds of the movie, it kind of defeats the fucking point.  Sadly this makes the story transparent enough after the introduction that you’re pretty sure your nuts are now a crystal ball and you’re a gypsy because you seen the plot coming for what seems like eons by the time they wrap it up 120 minutes later.

Overall, decent movie.  It’s definatly no Batman or Iron Man.  Probably your best bet to wait for the DVD or DVDRip on BitTorrent rather than shelving over the $9 for a movie ticket.

Off we went to the movies on Friday to see The Dark Knight.  An unusual amount of hype stirred up about the movie a month or so before it’s release which is unusual for a comic book based movie but I figured the media was playing off the late Heath Ledger as a marketing gimmick so I was a little worried about how good this movie would actually be.

It took me a day or so to really come to terms with the result of the experience.

The action sequences were decent but nothing we haven’t seen before in any other high budget action movie.  I find Christian Bale’s Batman to be a little stiff.  He just doesn’t seem as “agile” as the comic book version of Batman.

The story was good but a little long.  Being they crammed 2 villians (3 with the 30 seconds Scarecrow was featured but I don’t count him) they had to cram quite a bit in, which made the movie out to be 2 1/2 hours long.  I can’t say I didn’t feel the length of the movie either, I definatly did, mostly due to the next point.

The Joker — This character stole the movie right out from under everyone else grade B performance and turned the movie into an A++.  His first real scene where he’s meeting with a bunch of other mobsters pretty much pulled me back into a sitting position from my near falling asleep slouch.

I’ve never been a Heath Ledger fan.  In fact, I have a hard time recalling another movie he’s been in that I liked at all but holy crap did he kick ass as The Joker.  The character was so good however that first of all, you root for the bad guy.  I’m not sure that’s supposed to happen.  Maybe I’m just twisted but I don’t think that’s the only reason.  Second, it makes the time when he’s not part of the events going on, the other crap seem like it’s taking forever and you’re just waiting to get back to more Joker tomfoolery.

In the end, The Dark Knight is probably the best Batman movie ever made and that’s tough for me to come to terms with because I’ve loved the original Michael Keaton Batman all my childhood.  The Dark Knight owes it to Heath Ledger though.  RIP.