We’re so surprised we made the headline rhyme!
It was going to be a quiet Wednesday night, watching downloaded episodes of Weeds from Showtime, eating Taco Bell and…uh…hanging out…
*ahem*
When we decided to do a sweep through the old inbox and - BLAM! - someone saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army. And we knew this person. And they wrote us first!
Let’s call our tipster DayTripper (because they had already watched their downloaded Weeds, apparently) and let’s see what they have to say…
Just saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army and enjoyed myself.
My friend and I were given the invite at a IMAX screening of Kung Fu Panda and it might sound weird, but I enjoyed each movie the same way. They both need to be taken in for what they are, not what anyone expects them to be. Kung Fu Panda looked like idiot soup made for little cousin but ended up being a half-way decent kung fu film that only existed to tell a story and entertain. I went into The Golden Army expecting something like Pans Labyrinth, since the similarities were right there in the previews (Monster has eyes on its wings instead of eyes in its palms – got it).
It may seem obvious, but don’t go see Hellboy expecting serious Del Toro to come out and play. Hellboy feels like a guilty pleasure from a man that was suddenly thrust into the “serious” game with his war fantasy and The Hobbit movies on the back of his mind. The friend I went to go see the film with said that Guillermo Del Toro must be one of those Jim Henson type of people, where you will never understand how their mind works, but you don’t need to because they just want to show you something cool.
Hellboy starts with a flashback to the 50s where John Hurt reprises his role as Trevor ‘Broom’ Bruttenholm, the “father” of Red and Abe, he tells a story to a somewhat goofy-looking and poorly dubbed Young Red (though who can blame the dubbing since the kid’s mouth are comically filled with buck teeth). The story covers the creation of the Golden Army at the hands of some sort of king (Goblin? One-handed? Fantasy anyway). Seems the humans are greedy and are going to consume the earth, so the fantasy creatures go to war but get slaughtered. The king has a Golden Army created, an indestructible army of machinery and magic that is controlled by a three-piece crown. That and when you put the crown on, you have to declare yourself the ruler of the army and ask if anyone wants to contest you.
The Golden Army beats the living crap out of the humans and a truce is made between man and fantasy creatures. Creatures get the forest, man gets the cities and so it always shall be… you know how this goes. The king knows the Golden Army shouldn’t have been built, so he breaks the crown into pieces and gives one of the three to the humans. The Golden Army is locked away.
This whole sequence is CGI’d with wooden-drawing mannequins acting the main parts. Sort of like The Brother’s Quay, but made by computers.
Flash forward to present times, Hellboy is fighting with Liz, Abe and Jeffrey Tambor (no one cares what his character’s name is) talk about how difficult it is to corral Red since he’s been doing a horrible job of keeping their organization secret. This leads to the films first quip that made me chuckle, mainly Tambor bitching about how impossible it is to keep Hellboy off of YouTube: “I hate YouTube.”
This is when I realized I wasn’t in for the ride that I was hoping for, that this movie was going to be something I wasn’t expecting. And it is: it’s part action movie, part fairy-tale and part summer movie. It can’t be all three at once because it just doesn’t have enough time.
I’ll break down some key sequences based on these three.
Action Movie: HUGE plant monster (that should have been at the conclusion of The Happening, if you ask me). This thing is one of the “elementals,” but it’s really the Cloverfield monster as imagined by Walt Disney while speaking with the animators about the singing flower sequence in Alice In Wonderland. When Huge Plant Monster shows up, he fucks some cars and buildings up, but they might have well as called it “the biggest plot device that brings up relevant issues while not actually killing anyone.” The Golden Army also fits in the action category, and isn’t the slightest bit disappointing. Ditto for every other action piece. There’s a good bit where our baddie, Prince Nuada takes out some of his father’s royal guards. That part happens so fast with whip pans and quick cuts, but it only exists to show you two things: Nuada is a badass, and he has a physical connection with his twin sister, Princess Nuala. The great thing about the Prince is that he’s the first character we’ve seen in either Hellboy movie who doesn’t – at one point or another – just start an all-out brawl where everyone pummels Red. He doesn’t need to pummel Red, because he’s fast, trained and has an extending spear-thingy.
Fairy-Tale: Budget seemed to be no issue, because all the fantasy creatures looked great. You’ve seen Wink – the big troll thing that enters the auction in the previews. What’s great about Wink is he never looks like he’s made in a computer, and they use practical effects with him enough that he never doesn’t feel real. Almost all the fantasy creatures feel real (including the world’s cutest talking tumor), and that makes the sequence that takes place in the Troll Market (think Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley, except humans aren’t welcome) eye-popping. I’d love to see it again, just because of the creature work. The only creatures that are obviously CG’d are the Tooth Fairies, which exemplify the mood of the movie pretty well: They are introduced as deadly and will definitely make you NOT want to scream next time a swarm of pixies fly at you. However, when one is reanimated by the extoplasmic Johann Kraus, it becomes a comic prop instantly. The other fairy tale elements are there. Abe falls in love with someone (I’d tell you, but you’ll notice the instance they see each other), Liz and Red have to fall BACK in love with each other, and each one comes with the lesson that Outcasts are, in the end, more comfortable with other Outcasts. Strangely, that could have been the theme of the movie, but more on that later…
Summer Movie: You’re never more than 10 minutes from an action sequence. The one time you are the furthest from the action sequence is when, out of the blue, the story switches to something like a screwball comedy. Abe’s love is gone, Liz and Red are fighting, our leads are down and out…but Red has to fight his new boss Johann Krauss (who is actually steam/ectoplasm in a suit). Thing is, you can’t really fight steam, but Krauss can “possess” anything, leading to a sequence where Red loses a fight to a bank of lockers. Yeah, like the ones at the public swimming pool. Directly after that – DIRECTLY – Abe and Red get drunk together and sing along to a love song. Yes. Sing along. For these scenes, I was thinking that Del Toro had lost his mind. EXCEPT that they were well shot, as well acted as they could be through all the make-up and CGI. I’ve come to the conclusion that I didn’t like it because I wasn’t expecting it, but it doesn’t betray the characters and everyone watching it with me loved it. Just wasn’t my cup of tea. I was expecting Del Toro to make a balls-to-the-wall fantasy film and he snuck a little July-release into my mac-n-cheese.
Some final thoughts before I let you see the thing on your own: if there is an over-arching theme, I couldn’t nail it down. This isn’t an idea movie, though it occasionally looks like it might be trying to be. At first it looks like a nature vs. machine metaphor, except instead of Sauron Vs. Hobbit it’s Goblins Vs. Hellboy. Thing is, the Goblins and whatnot keep talking about humanity’s greed (which obviously drove them out of the forest, since we’re never in the forest) while simultaneously trying to raise and army of machines and sacrificing one of the last remaining forest gods. There’s also the “love will conquer all” storyline, but that goes nowhere fast and is totally unresolved. Actually, comically so: Red gets a joke and a freeze-frame and Abe just isn’t dealt with at all.
There also is a lot to say about Outcasts and acceptance and Them-Vs-Us. This pops up thematically a lot, but also only exists to answer the question. Usually when that happens, it’s the director wanting you to think about it. So, is Del Toro asking us point-blank how it feels to be a geek? If that’s true, the message is pretty clear: leave the geeks alone. Let them go make their Lord Of The Rings prequels.
That seems like a good note to end on. Last thought: the monster in the preview with the eyes on the wings does foreshadow a third Hellboy film. And he’s part of the only complete scene that worked for me completely, right down to Selma Blair’s bad acting. If the whole movie was like that one scene, you’d be getting a A+ review from me right now. As it is, I’m putting it down as a B.
Is a B good enough to get us into the theaters with the money we’re not planning on spending for Wall-E, Wanted and (a few weeks later) The Dark Knight? Decide for yourself, July 11th.
And props to DayTripper. Let’s hope he likes his name.
