Movies: Hellboy II The Golden Army

Before seeing this movie I endeavored to avoid spoilers, reviews, and even ratings of the movie only indulging myself in the awesome ads that my friends sent my way. So it was with high expectation and a clean slate that I walked in to see this movie on Saturday July 12th.

The movie starts off feeling like you are going to get a reprisal of the fabulous, funny cult hit that was the original Hellboy dropping you into an already established world and cast of characters makes the reader feel like they are in for another roller coaster ride of weirdness with some funny along the way. Above all else this movie was gorgeous, Guillermo Del Torro definitely has a talent for making the fantastic beautiful, haunting, and disturbing.

However, while I love Ron Pearlman and would not have missed this movie for the world and while I recommend that people see it because of the visual stimulation, I was disappointed by the plot and general writing of the movie. In a summer of spectacular new properties ( Iron Man and Wall-E) and some really promising sequels (the eagerly awaited Dark Knight), Hellboy stands out in its attempt to make something wonderful on all fronts and succeeding only on one.

There are many wonderful plot ideas presented in this movie, so many in fact that there isn't enough time to properly introduce or resolve any of them. Also, while the first movie felt like it captured the essence of the comic and translated it to the screen this one feels almost campy in its humor and relation to the comic book and often just uses the fantastical elements that make this series so intriguing as an excuse for more visual affects.

Overall while this was a beautiful movie I don't think that it stands up to the legacy of the first movie and the comic. So while I hope that there is another movie, so that the franchise can be saved, I also hope that Mr. Del Torro gets a better screenwriter and flushes out his plot better before creating his visual affects.

Grade: C+

Movies: Hitman

Ok, now I know I said this post would be about restaurants, food, movies, and television and thus far just movies but give me a break, I am in grad school and I just finished on Wednesday. Movies has been the only form of entertainment that I have been allowed to engage in up to this point. Two hours and then you're done and can get back to work. Well, today I broke out of my pattern, I went to lunch at Susu, which I will post about tomorrow, and then I did a whole lot of Wellesley jumping and then onward to home for dinner and a movie, that movie, Hitman.

Now no one is expecting much out of a movie made out of a video game. Though at least Doom showed us that a video game movie could be a fun Friday evening of making fun of the film and its creators ( I am a big fan of movies you can make fun of… Dark Water anyone) but this was not one of those movies. To begin the saga, two of my friends fell asleep within the first half an hour ( not a good sign) then one friend who I rely on to stay awake during movies like these so that I can poke fun at them with her, fell asleep ( warning sign number two). Throughout the movie I found myself turning to those around me, both asleep and not asleep, and asking them if it was just me or if this was truly terrible. It was truly terrible. The acting was non-existent. Timothy Olyphant, who I usually find charming and adorable, was weird and creepy with his head shaved bald and his wooden acting. I have no doubt that this was a character he was attempting to play but when I find myself comparing the movie to The Saint and XXX and finding it more than lacking, that is saying something. There was no plot to speak of and the actors were not at their best, Ukranian actress Olga Kurylenko was ineffective at using a Russian accent to the point where she actually had a French accent instead and her performance was so wooden and horrible that we kept making fun of her accent out of embarrassment for her.

I give this movie an F I couldn't find anything redeeming about it. It was so bad we couldn't even enjoy it enough to make fun of it, it ranks among the Sci-Fi Channel's made for Tv movies and I dare to say that even some of those are better than this piece of crap. Don't Netflix it, it isn't worth wasting your movie choice on.