Mel and I saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army on Friday. Reviews were good and our hopes were high and we were not dissappointed!
I liked the first Hellboy movie, but didn’t feel that it lived up to the promise of the excellent comic series. Hellboy II, however, I loved! From the opening bedtime story a young Hellboy is being told which is shown like an old stop-motion Christmas tale to the true depictions of those same characters and the weird and wonderful hidden world of the Troll Market and the last of the elementals and more… WOW. Guillermo Del Toro uses what he learned making Pan’s Labyrinth and expands on it.
Prince Nuada and his fight scenes give me hope for the live action World of Warcaft movie that’s in the making. This is the first live action movie I’ve seen that has capturing the “cool” of anime fight scenes without snapping my suspenders of disbelief. His movements are sharp and super fast but never never look sped up by camera trickery, and the little touches like his spear stopping *perfectly* at the end of a stroke rather than wavering just emphasizes what a perfectionist badass this character is. I bought him, his motivations and actions 100%.
The only better movie so far this year has been Wall-E! 5/5.
Sorry I couldn’t see it with you - I promised Carina I’d see it with her as part of her birthday celebration last night.
“Mish mash” is a good description of this movie in terms of style and feel. It was a little disjointed but not alarmingly so. The forest critter made me think of Miyazaki’s films. The troll market made me think of Harry Potter. There were some Dark Crystal moments. Etc etc. I guess it’s not really a bad thing. I hope Del Toro does At the Mountains of Madness like he’s planning.