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***1/2 out of ****.

I liked the first Hellboy a great deal and the 2nd one is even better.  The effects are amazing, Ron Pearlman is great again as the demonic title character, Selma Blair is gorgeous as usual in addition to be given much more to do this time around and it is just a bigger and better version of the 1st film in a lot of respects.  Sometimes, the movie almost suffers from visual overkill at times which is why I knocked a half star off of the rating as at times director/writer Guillermo Del Toro gets a bit too much  carried away with trying to wow people with the visuals.  Family Guy creater Seth McFarland does a great job BTW as the voice of the vaprous new character Johann.  Luke Goss is amazing as the sympathetic-at-times villain  Prince Nuada.   

Awesome stuff and I can't wait for the 3rd one!

I've been reading a lot of positive reviews for it.
Hope to see it this week.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS, though I will try to keep it vague...



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I too think Guillermo's visuals get better every film, but I would have preferred if it had more of the spirit of the first film.

The storyline E.G. the main conflict w/the titular army and the main villain was great, and the ever-expanding exposition of hellboy's "destiny" continues masterfully, but the dialogue and characterization during the sub-plots always seemed to keep me far from connecting to the sequel in the same way I did the first! Everyone just seemed so out-of-character! For the most part Liz gave off the uncomfortable vibe of a frustrated "plain Jane", not to mention Manning started wearing his inner-weakness on his sleeves, as we get the feeling he never would in the first. hellboy and Abe got more in touch with their emotions, which was okay, but sometimes it seemed like hellboy became more of a "big lug" than the hardass he was in the first, and Abe came off a bit like a sitcom geek sometimes. The stuff with HB and Abe wasn't bad for the most part, but there is one scene that I found pretty damn ridiculous, which I believe most will know when you see...

Other than the characters there are only 2 major complaints I can think of right now:
1) damn, has hellboy been taking martial arts lately? Because he seems to have sped up about 10x since he fought Kroenen :buggedout: .
2) Why, why, WHY DANNY ELFMAN??!! The original theme was so ominous, down and dirty, in this film we get GENERIC HEROIC CUES! Honestly, I think I barely would have noticed all the OOC behavior if it only had a more appropriate score to back it up!

For all I felt disappointed by in this sequel, there was a whole lot of consolation in the fact that this one felt a lot more like the comic than the first. The supernatural world here seemed pretty much spot-on as it usually is in the comics. It's "just a living" for goblins, trolls, and the like, and the elves hate the living! :teddyr: I think if the third installment has the same effects budget, keeps expanding the "hellboy's fate" story, puts together the supernatural elements of this one with the conspiracy angle of the first, and at the same time returns to the spirit of the first (Including appropriate musical cues), it'll be hard to top. However with this one the positive qualities only balance it out, putting it on the same level as, or even slightly below HB1.

I was generally disappointed with the film.  Here is a reply I posted on another site after seeing the film on Friday. 




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Saw the film at it's first screening in town yesterday afternoon. I loved the original Hellboy, I loved the comic book, but this film just didn't work as well as I had hoped.

The film is absolutely gorgeous to look at, I give Del Toro that. There are a lot of great scenes throughout, but as a whole it just wasn't as amazing as I hoped.

I do prefer Doug Jones as Abe rather than him playing Abe and having David Hyde Pierce do the voiceover. Now, Abe's voice finally match his movement. That said, his "love" in the film just didn't work too well in my opinion. It was something that was overblown in the film and I just wasn't feeling it.

I did love Johann Krauss, and I felt they did an excellent job of bringing him to the screen. I kept thinking to myself, "That sounds just like Seth McFarlane.....there's no way he'd do the voice....", and guess what - I just found out I was right. Great casting there.

The ending I think was my biggest disappointment. They had this potential for absolute mayhem with the Golden Army but their appearance in the film is much too short. Everything felt anti-climatic considering the things that had come before it.

Overall, it's decent. It's not a great film but it is absolutely gorgeous to look at. I guess over the years, I just expected something "more" from Del Toro.




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It's by far Del Toro's most commercial work, which wouldn't be a problem if it had more substance.  I like a lot of the ideas that were brought up in the film, and cannot wait to see what comes next.  A lot of the imagery in the film was beautiful but just couldn't hold up what I felt was a weak story. 

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read at your own risk.....











A buddy of mine was so looking forward to this movie and was immensely disappointed by the love stories that develop (HB and Liz; Abe and Nuala). While the rest of us laughed at the sheer cuteness of Abe and HB singing a duet of "I Can't Smile Without You" while sharing beers, he was sitting in the dark and grinding his teeth apparently. He was satisfied with this entry, but thought that it could have stood to have a lot more action and mayhem.

Also, Death tells Liz that she'll suffer worse than anyone...... could it be that having Hellbaby twins will kill her?! That's one of my theories for the next part in the Hellboy trilogy.  :wink:

I was going to post my feelings on the movie, but Skaboi hit it 100% exactly as I would have, no reason to post the exact same thing TWICE.

I saw HB2 this afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but then, I've never read the comics, so I don't have any idea how faithful an adaptation the movie is.


SPOILERSish type observations:









I did expect more mayhem from the golden army, but the story as is satisfied me. I didn't realize Danny Elfman did the music until the credits, so I guess I could be disappointed in him about that, but I just can't bring myself to dislike much about the movie. The goblin market had shades of the Star Wars cantina, not in substance, but in feel, like Del Toro was showing off his monster creativity. That seemed a bit overdone to me. And one thing that most definitely got annoying was that when any new monster appears that is allied with the Prince, it has to come up near the camera, flex somehow, and then scream. Even the golden army soldiers do this. Why does a robot need to scream? Or a giant forest elemental?

But I consider the annoyances minor and the enjoyment factor to be quite high, so I would definitely recommend it.

 I enjoyed it a lot, with the only let down being the Golden Army. The final battle was a little anti-climatic, but  I loved the last scene when Liz gives HB the news.

I saw it last week and really liked it...at least as much as the first one. I am not a follower of the comics so I had no expectations going into this other than hoping that it compared to the first one. This is one of the few sequels to a film that I can say I liked at least as much as the first.

I really liked Hellboy II.

Make no mistake, this is Del Toro's big, dumb summer movie. Much more so than the first, it is pretty much a straight up action comedy with fantasy elements. (Bad Boys with monsters?)

The original comic is much more of a creepfest, with all sorts of eerie cadences and offbeat mythical references. Much darker than either of the movies. Of course, you have to take into account the sheer goofiness of Nazi gorillas and brains in jars, but it all works quite well. Compared to the comics, the movie characters are drawn with a much broader brush, personality-wise. Everybody's, well, bigger and dumber. Hellboy's more of an overgrown kid in the movies, rather than the character in the comic, who is more a tired soldier who's just looking for something he can finally beat up in an eldritch universe.

That being said, if you take the movie for what it is, separate than the comic, it's a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I'm not sure the audience was with me. I seemed to be the only one laughing when Hellboy punched that old lady across the alleyway. Oh, and the visuals and fight scenes were quite good.

If you know the value of monsters beating up monsters, I recommend Hellboy II.

I rather liked this movie.  I thought Johann Krauss stole nearly every scene he was in.  I am just hoping that if a third is made, Lobster Johnson is put in it.


Boy, that last sentence sounded rather inappropriate.
 

A large improvement over the first in most ways,  Hellboy II is quite solid.  Entertaining, with amazing practical effects work, it's quite a summer spectacle.  The plot is more interesting, there are lots of beasties, and the action is FAAAAAR better.  The pacing, in particular, is also vastly improved.  It probably comes across that I wasn't much of a fan of the original - I thought it had a great lead performance and some good visuals, but suffered from lackluster plotting, relatively weak character development (something not much better in II), and was just a little dull around the edges.  Most of this is fixed in 2, so I quite liked it.

Overall, 8/10 from me.

I just watched this on DVD and quite enjoyed it.  The characters are tongue in cheek fun throughout the otherwise somewhat dark plot line.  Krauss was a hilarious addition to the staff and made me laugh several times.  Although the ending was a bit blah (seems to be a common thread lately in Hollywood the past year or so), I found the film to be entertainment that walks down the middle of goofy and serious. 

I think that Hellboy 3 would be nice; the movie was decent enough, and although it had its failings, it was by no means a cinematic faux-pas. But here's the problem: By the time Del Toro wraps with all his projects, it's projected that we will be living in the year 2017!!! Ron Perlman will be 67 years old!

So he, in reality, will have to take a backseat in this franchise, possibly as producer or exec producer, and let someone else take the reins. Perhaps his friend Juan Antonio Bayona, who directed The Orphanage. But I personally don't want to see Perlman in monster go-go boots and a foam-rubber chest, doing his own stunts and playing rough with demons, when he would be old enough to get the Senior Citizens Discount at Denny's! And I don't think he wants that either.

I bet someone here could brainstorm some talent. I'll get the ball rolling. I elect Juan Antonio Bayona and Alfonso Cuaron. NEXT!!! :smile:

I've seen very VERY few movies where the effects are stunning enough to overshadow flat and even WTF moments in script, but this is one of them.

If you don't have a large screen, find someone who does and buy this DVD. I haven't been this impressed by advances in visual effects for almost a decade. The blending of Puppetry and CGI quite frankly blew Lucas out of the water.

Yeah, that market scene is the new Mos Eisley cantina scene.