Hellboy II

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xeemzor

Platinum Member
Mar 27, 2005
2,599
1
71
Originally posted by: schizoid77
Most plot hole questions can be answered with; so there's a movie to watch, ffs.

I give movies such as this a large benefit of the doubt. However, there is only so much I'm willing to give them before it become ridiculous.
 

jjones

Lifer
Oct 9, 2001
15,424
2
0
Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
I saw it last night and thought it was just OK. I was distracted by Abe not having David Hyde Pierce's voice, and the whole thing just seemed manic and muddled to me. It did have it strengths, and it equaled out to be average - IMO the first one was considerably better.
I agree. Lots of little problems, and a couple big ones, with this movie that really kept me from enjoying it. It was just barely okay, imo.

And I have to say that del Toro is the golden boy to the critics now; he can do no wrong. This movie is currently rating 88% on RT and the reviews are much more generous than this movie deserves. Most have given del Toro a free pass on the movie's flaws.

Edit: That's not to say I don't like del Toro. I think his movies like Cronos, El Espinazo del Diablo, and Labirinto del Fauno are great. He excellent at telling stories and that's why I think the Hobbit will be very good. I just don't think he does quite as well in the "action" genre as a director.

 

Descartes

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
13,968
2
0
Originally posted by: jjones
Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
I saw it last night and thought it was just OK. I was distracted by Abe not having David Hyde Pierce's voice, and the whole thing just seemed manic and muddled to me. It did have it strengths, and it equaled out to be average - IMO the first one was considerably better.
I agree. Lots of little problems, and a couple big ones, with this movie that really kept me from enjoying it. It was just barely okay, imo.

And I have to say that del Toro is the golden boy to the critics now; he can do no wrong. This movie is currently rating 88% on RT and the reviews are much more generous than this movie deserves. Most have given del Toro a free pass on the movie's flaws.

Edit: That's not to say I don't like del Toro. I think his movies like Cronos, El Espinazo del Diablo, and Labirinto del Fauno are great. He excellent at telling stories and that's why I think the Hobbit will be very good. I just don't think he does quite as well in the "action" genre as a director.

The Orphanage, a movie del Toro produced, was excellent as well in my opinion. That was a seriously underhyped movie, but had the same qualities of Pan's along with the suspense of something like The Sixth Sense.
 

Svnla

Lifer
Nov 10, 2003
17,986
1,388
126
I saw this movie today. If you like the first one, you will like this one. Not bad but not great. I give it a C++ (75%) overall.

HB2 is number 1 movie of this week, 30something million take.
 

SirStev0

Lifer
Nov 13, 2003
10,449
6
81
Originally posted by: loup garou
Originally posted by: Schfifty Five
Fight scenes were pretty cool/badass, but the story was just so disconnected.

It jumps from out of place comedy to plot development back to more comedy way too quickly.

There were some cool ideas/environments/characters, but overall the disconnected story made this feel very different from the first.

Plus the voice actor for Abe Sapien was not niles crane (don't know his real name) and I thought that was kind of weird.
Yeah, the voice acting was done by Doug Jones, he's the guy in the Abe suit (both movies). He's tight with Del Toro, played Pan and the Pale Man, and I think he was in the Angel of Death getup as well. Unfortunately, while he's a pretty good mime, he's not a very good actor. His voice acting was pretty damn bad.
Originally posted by: judasmachine
Originally posted by: Schfifty Five
Fight scenes were pretty cool/badass, but the story was just so disconnected.

It jumps from out of place comedy to plot development back to more comedy way too quickly.

There were some cool ideas/environments/characters, but overall the disconnected story made this feel very different from the first.

Plus the voice actor for Abe Sapien was not niles crane (don't know his real name) and I thought that was kind of weird.

I think I read the same thing about Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Well minus comedy, just that it jumped back and forth from two different stories. But in Pan's I thought it was supposed to be disjointed.
I thought (most of) the comedy was great...made it more like the comics. HB is always making some stupid quip then disaster falls in his lap and he's in the midst of a fight or something. The drunk scene was the best scene in the whole movie for that reason...minus the Golden Army confrontation, which was just badass.

+1
 

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
Aug 23, 2003
25,375
142
116
HB2 opened a lot better than HB1 (~$12m more IIRC); it piggybacked on the critical success of Pan's Labyrinth.
 
Feb 10, 2000
30,029
67
91
Originally posted by: Descartes

The Orphanage, a movie del Toro produced, was excellent as well in my opinion. That was a seriously underhyped movie, but had the same qualities of Pan's along with the suspense of something like The Sixth Sense.

I loved the first half of The Orphanage, but then it seriously went downhill.
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Originally posted by: xeemzor
There are just a few giant plot holes that I just can't get over
*Spoiler*









If they were able to melt the crown, why didn't they just melt the one piece they had!?!?!?!?!!? What was the elf dude going to do with only 2 pieces?
Why would you choose to save Hellboy at the cost of the world, which would mean that you would die anyway?
Why did the bad guy have no reasonable plan to recover the third piece other than to just sit around waiting for the idiotic good guys to bring it to him?

I could go on, but I think you get my point.



1) if they did that it would have made for a pretty boring 10 min movie
2) Love - not hard to figure that one out
3) im not gonna explain this one to you because if you cant figure it out you are beyond help
 

loup garou

Lifer
Feb 17, 2000
35,132
1
81
Originally posted by: Anubis
Originally posted by: xeemzor
There are just a few giant plot holes that I just can't get over
*Spoiler*









If they were able to melt the crown, why didn't they just melt the one piece they had!?!?!?!?!!? What was the elf dude going to do with only 2 pieces?
Why would you choose to save Hellboy at the cost of the world, which would mean that you would die anyway?
Why did the bad guy have no reasonable plan to recover the third piece other than to just sit around waiting for the idiotic good guys to bring it to him?

I could go on, but I think you get my point.



1) if they did that it would have made for a pretty boring 10 min movie
2) Love - not hard to figure that one out
3) im not gonna explain this one to you because if you cant figure it out you are beyond help

lol, I never thought of #1 during the movie, but he has a point. Doesn't bother me though.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
Originally posted by: foghorn67
Does the villain remind anyone of the wraiths from Stargate Atlantis?

That's what someone said to me earlier today and she sounded a bit annoyed that they made the elves look so ugly when the Sidhe are supposed to be immensely beautiful or something like that.

Originally posted by: loup garou
lol, I never thought of #1 during the movie, but he has a point. Doesn't bother me though.

I talked a bit about it in my post... the people made stupid, horrible very comic-cliché choices throughout the movie. You know... when someone makes an obviously illogical choice and it's just for the point of working the plot?

EDIT:

To further clarify, I could understand Hellboy making a stupid choice... he's not billed as being brains but rather brawn, but when it comes to Abe... yeah, it was a bit odd.
 

Gothgar

Lifer
Sep 1, 2004
13,429
1
0
I really enjoyed the first one as well, and want to see this one, but I don't get to the movies often and I am definitely choosing Dark Knight over Hellboy 2 this weekend, just bad timing, they should have put off the release a month or so, like others have said.
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
I really enjoyed this movie, especially the Lovecraft elements within. For example one of the opening scenes has them wrestling with something that looks straight out of at the mountains of madness. My wife enjoyed the movie too, which is a big plus.
 

PingSpike

Lifer
Feb 25, 2004
21,758
603
126
MINOR SPOILER:




























That toilet seat joke was pretty funny I thought. But I'm a sucker for a good toilet joke!
 

ScottyB

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2002
6,677
1
0
I think I went into the film with too high of expectations. I don't want to say I hate the film, because it did keep me entertained. However, the film was seriously lacking in several key areas. The film, for one, had too much of a "Men in Black" feel to it; especially during the beginning as the characters were walking through their compound. I also got a bit of a "Harry Potter" vibe as Abe and Hellboy walked through the Troll's Market.

Characterization was a serious problem in the film. The character of Jeffrey Tambor was too much of a pussy in this film. He just seems like a different person. The robot ghost man was just over the top; something probably to get the super nerds laughing in that giddy, jackass he-haw they do. He was not needed in the film and, I believe, actually distracted from the story.

The antagonist of the film was not a true antagonist. Del Torro didn't give enough motive for Hellboy to take the actions he took during the film. The film seemed flat and uninteresting, and had little buildup to the fight scenes between the characters. They seemed like speed bumps on the way to some unsaid goal of the film.

The most serious problem of the film was the interaction of the story lines. There was not enough focus on any of the four main lines. We had the pregnancy issue, the Abe love story, the bad guy army, and the public's knowledge of Hellboy. It was just too much. There was not enough room for any of the stories to grow as they were all suffocating each other. It was a complete mess.

Del Torro obviously has an eye for detail and a love of film, but he is letting his passion for the visual get in the way of true storytelling. And, like it or not, film is about storytelling. Without it, we would just be looking at pretty pictures. I hope he can concentrate on the story for the "Hobbit." Otherwise the entire enterprise might crash and burn.

 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: ScottyB
I think I went into the film with too high of expectations. I don't want to say I hate the film, because it did keep me entertained. However, the film was seriously lacking in several key areas. The film, for one, had too much of a "Men in Black" feel to it; especially during the beginning as the characters were walking through their compound. I also got a bit of a "Harry Potter" vibe as Abe and Hellboy walked through the Troll's Market.

Characterization was a serious problem in the film. The character of Jeffrey Tambor was too much of a pussy in this film. He just seems like a different person. The robot ghost man was just over the top; something probably to get the super nerds laughing in that giddy, jackass he-haw they do. He was not needed in the film and, I believe, actually distracted from the story.

The antagonist of the film was not a true antagonist. Del Torro didn't give enough motive for Hellboy to take the actions he took during the film. The film seemed flat and uninteresting, and had little buildup to the fight scenes between the characters. They seemed like speed bumps on the way to some unsaid goal of the film.

The most serious problem of the film was the interaction of the story lines. There was not enough focus on any of the four main lines. We had the pregnancy issue, the Abe love story, the bad guy army, and the public's knowledge of Hellboy. It was just too much. There was not enough room for any of the stories to grow as they were all suffocating each other. It was a complete mess.

Del Torro obviously has an eye for detail and a love of film, but he is letting his passion for the visual get in the way of true storytelling. And, like it or not, film is about storytelling. Without it, we would just be looking at pretty pictures. I hope he can concentrate on the story for the "Hobbit." Otherwise the entire enterprise might crash and burn.

Dang that's a pretty harsh review. I'm curious - how often do you go to a movie to simply enjoy it for what it is, rather than comparing it with other past movies?
 
Dec 30, 2004
12,553
2
76
Originally posted by: PingSpike
I had a take it or leave it attitude to the first one, it was an ok movie with some neat characters but felt a little to hokey. But the preview for the new one shows so many awesome monters I really want to see this one for just that if nothing else.

Took the words out of my mouth...
 

sactoking

Diamond Member
Sep 24, 2007
7,648
2,924
136
I thought the first one was ok. I liked the fact that Hellboy doesn't take himself or life too seriously. Much easier to like as a character than, say, Cyclops.

Saw HB2 in the theater. Wasn't a great movie, but very entertaining. I knew I needed to shut off my brain to watch it. If you saw HB and went into HB2 and sliced and diced the plots, you missed the entire point. Why is 'Animal House' a classic? Because it's ENTERTAINING. You don't nitpick the plot of 'Animal House'! Not to say that HB2 is a classic, but you get the point.

I also don't think that there were too many plots in HB2. If you count 4, you get pregnancy, Abe, the Golden Army, and the public. Abe wasn't a plot so much as a plot point. It advanced the army story. That means you're left with 3 plots. I thought it was pretty clear that the pregnancy and the public were part of the same plot. They also revolved around what happened to HB at the end with the metal. It's all about internal conflict being set for the obvious sequel: HB is a father, his babymomma would give anything for him, the public hates him, and he's destined to destroy the world...... Yeah, there's not another movie in there anywhere.
 

scott916

Platinum Member
Mar 2, 2005
2,906
0
71
Did anyone notice the crown he had on when Abe looked at him through the goggles? My gf mentioned it but I didn't see it...