Hellboy II: The Golden Army - Review

Time for me to own up. I never thought this movie would happen. The first Hellboy wasn’t exactly a box office smash and let’s face it, selling a superhero movie about a character who looks like Satan was never a sure thing to begin with. Yet I’ve never been happier to be wrong. The original movie showed tremendous potential, the character of Hellboy was flat out fantastic, needing only a better story, preferably one with fewer random, badly CGI’d tentacles, to roam around in. Hellboy II: The Golden Army delivers that, along with more of the charming, growling, cigar-chewing character depth which made Hellboy so damn engaging to begin with.

Director/writer Guillermo del Toro is going to get a lot of the credit, but it’s Ron Perlman, the guy under Hellboy’s red makeup, who makes this universe work. His performance is once again, nothing short of Oscar caliber. With Perlman under the prosthetics Hellboy isn’t just some freakish creation, he’s a living, breathing person who just happens to be really red. His demonic appearance means plenty of personal problems, and more than once Del Toro goes hook line and sinker for the well-meaning Frankenstein versus pitchfork wielding villagers comparison. But lumbering brute Hellboy is not. With or without horns, he’s the kind of guy you’d want to hang out with. Forget Batman or Spider-Man. If I had to have a superhero friend, Hellboy is the only one I’d want to plop down on a couch and drink beer with.

It’s when we’re just hanging out with the movie’s bizarre characters that Hellboy II is the most fun. It’s not just Perlman, he’s merely the leader of the pack. New additions to the team like gassy Johann Krauss, voiced perfectly by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane bring added dimension. Doug Jones in particular, is amazing as Hellboy’s fishy friend Abe Sapien, with an expanded role in this second film to let us get a better feel for what his character’s about. The best moment in Hellboy II has nothing to do with fighting bad guys or saving the world (though there’s plenty of that), instead it happens when Hellboy and Abe decide to get drunk, play sappy music, and wander around moaning about their love life. It’s brilliant because their emotions are so raw and real, yet their appearance is anything but. That juxtaposition will suck you in, and leave you longing for more time with Hellboy and his oddish pals.

Even though quite frankly the movie doesn’t need it, Hellboy II does still have that save the world plot. The story picks up a significant, yet unaddressed amount of time after the first film. Hellboy and Liz (Selma Blair) have finally hooked up together and settled in, while Hellboy still longs for the world to know who the heck he is. Meanwhile, the underworld’s mystical creatures are plotting to declare war on man. An Elf prince is planning to resurrect a mythical army of indestructible warriors, which means that before long Hellboy and his federally funded team of ghost chasers are put in the line of fire. It’s a fun excuse for Hellboy to shoot stuff, and it’s done without some of the confusing magical mumbo-jumbo which cluttered up the story of the original Hellboy.

While the action adventure plotline is indeed a serious improvement over the half-assed story the first movie wrapped itself in, there’s no denying that it’s still the weakest thing about this series. Or maybe it’s simply that Del Toro’s hero characters are so good, we’re less interested in watching them save the world than we are in watching them hang out at home and simply be themselves. Del Toro tries to compensate for that by using his adventure plot to bring out more in his characters, but the film never flows as well when we’re fighting maniac elves as it does when Hellboy, Liz, and Abe are simply talking, living, and breathing.

That’s not to say the action isn’t entertaining. It is, in a breezy sort of way. It helps that this time the special effects are truly mind blowing. Del Toro has refused to be suckered in by Hollywood’s trend of CGI overuse, preferring instead to mix amazing practical effects with computer generated effects. The result is that when a monster walks across the screen, you believe he’s actually there… because he is. Most of the best creatures in the film, of which there are literally dozens and dozens of different varieties, are not animated caricatures but actors wearing the most amazing costumes you’ve ever seen. The same is true of Hellboy and all of his fellow heroes. Watching Hellboy requires no suspension of disbelief, because these things are actually there and being acted out by real actors inside amazing prosthetics. Seeing is believing.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a definite improvement over the first, already pretty good Hellboy film. Hellboy himself is without a doubt, the most compelling and interesting superhero character that’s ever made it on screen, which makes it kind of a shame that even though this second one is spectacularly entertaining, the adventure plot still doesn’t seem quite up to par with Perlman’s spellbinding performance or the amazing dialogue Guillermo has written for him. Hellboy has the best superhero character ever, a bonafide icon. So maybe he isn’t in the best superhero movie ever, but there’s so much to love here that Hellboy II comes close. The Golden Army is a must see, whether you’re already a Hellboy fan or not. If you’re not, by the time you walk out, you will be. Bring on Hellboy III.

Iron Man - Review

By the end of his film Jon Favreau’s Iron Man is a light and fluffy character, a superhero colored in with bright bits of crayon, but he doesn’t start out that way. Ironically it’s early on in the story when Tony Stark, the man inside the bright red suit, is still a carefree playboy and globe-trotting arms merchant that he has the most edge. It’s there that Favreau’s superhero movie works best, as Stark is captured by a group of terrorists known as the Ten Rings (nod to all you Mandarin fans), injured, and forced to work in a dank cave designing weapons.

Left with no choice Stark sets to work making killing machines as they demand, he just doesn’t make the killing machine his captors expect. Robert Downey Jr. is understated and complex as Stark, slaving away in the dust, working in secret for his own freedom under the threat of death, turning his grave injuries into triumph. Favreau seems to know that this early origin story is indeed the best part of his script, since he lingers on it, spending nearly half of his unexpectedly lengthy film on this well staged and acted setup.

If you’ve seen the trailers then you know that Stark eventually gets out of the cave and you know how he does it. It’s the kind of moment that’s bound to elicit cheers from the audience, and it doesn’t hurt that we know he’s kicking terrorist ass. Once he gets home, Stark sets about re-evaluating his role in selling weapons to the murderers of the world. Deciding he’s had enough of it, he puts his mind to the task of figuring out how to stop it. Tony Stark isn’t just a wealthy arms dealer, he’s beyond brilliant. We believe that this charismatic man, this wealthy inventor with an oversized ego, might really come up with this particular answer. His answer is Iron Man.

It’s there that the movie starts missing beats. We meet Tony Stark’s assistant, the plucky Pepper Potts, played by terribly miscast Gwyneth Paltrow. Their scenes together are agony, and often seem utterly misplaced, as if they belong in an entirely different movie. We meet Stark’s business partner and mentor, Obadiah Stone played by a bald and bearded Jeff Bridges. There’s nothing subtle about Stone, or any of the limply mysterious plot devices surrounding him. You know what he’s up to the minute you see his chrome dome. We meet Stark’s best friend Jim Rhodes, the best character in the film’s supporting cast. His role is limited, but Terrence Howard acquits himself well and leaves us wanting more of Rhodes.

And eventually we meet the movie’s obligatory villain, an uncreative, familiar riff on the notion that every superhero must face his exact opposite and equal. The Hulk must fight the Super Hulk. Superman must fight three Supermen. Iron Man must fight the Super Iron Man. It’s not very creative, and their final fight leaves something to be desired.

The problems are all in the second half of the movie, where Iron Man stops being different and settles for being ordinary and at times even silly. It becomes a well put together, well polished, but very standard, paint by numbers superhero origin story. There are no surprises, and even while it remains immensely entertaining that’s somewhat disappointing after the first half of the film where we sit down and get to know a man who describes himself as a merchant of death. I wanted to see how such an obvious villain becomes a hero, and the answer is apparently that someone simply flips a switch in the script.

Yet I don’t want to sound like I’m down on this movie. Iron Man is a lot of fun, especially for a superhero origin story, since they so often end up going awry. While I wasn’t blown away by the final battle between Iron Man and the film’s baddie, there are other great action sequences. Unlike most superheroes, Iron Man isn’t about stopping petty criminals or stalking city streets. His mission is global, and his big coming out party happens in a dusty Afghanistan village, saving villagers and farmers… where absolutely no one is looking. It’s the best action sequence in the entire film, and the place where you’ll want to cheer, even though there’s no over muscled robot for Iron Man to face off against.

It’s also refreshing to see a superhero flick in which the hero isn’t some angsty teenager or a borderline underwear model. Tony Stark is a mature man, with deep rooted flaws. Unfortunately, Favreau’s movie chooses to ignore most of them when things really get moving. My hope is that with this as a setup, we’ll get more of the screwed up egomaniac lurking inside Tony Stark’s helmet, and maybe even a more worthy, creative villain as well. The film is filled with all sorts of geeky references hinting at things to come. Iron Man is good enough that you’ll look forward to seeing them brought to fruition in whatever sequels drop from this tree.

Son of Rambow - Review

Written and directed by Garth Jennings (Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy), his sophomore project Son of Rambow is a much smaller, more restrained effort. Without an obsessive fanbase and massive expectation weighing down on him, Jennings finds his stride using the hilarious and sweet personal story of two boys with one seemingly simple mission.

It’s the summer of 1983 and ten year old Will Proudfoot is a member of the Plymouth Brethren, a strict Evangelical movement which discourages mixing with non-believers and frowns upon all forms of modern entertainment. So instead he spends his days hiding out in his dead father’s garden shed letting his imagination run wild in the form of elaborate and colorful murals on the pages of his bible. It is when waiting outside class one day while his classmates watch an educational video, that he encounters Lee Carter: a young tearaway student with dreams of making his own home video version of famous Rambo flick First Blood, for submission to a TV competition for budding film makers.

After bailing Will out of potential trouble resulting from an accident, Lee demands that as payment for saving him, Will must help him film his movie masterpiece. It is during this process that Will gets his first taste of TV and cinema in the form of Lee’s pirate copy of First Blood and soon his inventive imagination goes in to overdrive as he starts to style himself as the “Son of Rambo”. Soon what started as one small boy’s dream project spirals in to an out of control adventure as an unlikely friendship of highs and lows is formed between the two.

Jennings hasn’t just made a touching and funny coming of age story about friendship, the Son of Rambow is a love letter to what it is, or should be, to be a child: a place where imagination and fun can be used as a shield them from the grim realities of the growing up in the real world. Everyplace, from a farmer’s field to a nursing home, is a blank canvas of exciting possibilities. While Will uses his imagination to escape the mundane and increasingly restricted life his religion tries to impose on him, Lee uses it to escape the harsh consequences of a broken home. It is through these shared imaginations that the two unlikely boys bond and through their different realities have that bond tested.

Jennings isn’t afraid to show this imagination either, and as Will’s imagination breaks free we see his mind start to transform such dull things as a field in to a battlefield full of crayon drawn rockets and explosions. In one breathtaking scene we watch an entire surreal dream sequence where, using a mixture of live-action and chalkboard like animation, Will gets to act out his “Son of Rambo” action adventure in dizzying detail. It sounds bizarre, but if you can leave the cynicism of adulthood at the door and remember yourself as a ten year old child, it becomes something you can relate to, rather than a gimmick.

Everything about the movie clicks in this way, despite the sometimes heightened reality used for comedy effect. The stunts the boys perform are just far enough over the top to be silly without being ridiculous and there’s an at-first bizarre subplot involving exchange students which crashes in to the main storyline two-thirds in, providing much needed testing of the boys’ new relationship, while deftly never resorting to casting any of the younger characters as unsympathetic villains.

The two boys chosen for the leads carry themselves remarkably well, despite not being professional actors. In fact that may be what allows them to portray these characters so well. They lack the creepy artifice of those “engineered” child actors from Hollywood like Dakota Fanning.

Son of Rambow will connect with anyone whose childhood was more about running through the woods re-enacting their favorite films and TV shows with good friends, than texting BFFs on cell phones and playing Grand Theft Auto in a dark room for 12 hours straight. In fact, many of the references thoughout the film jogged long forgotten memories in myself of life growing up back in the days of the seemingly endless summers and carefree 80s innocence. If you don’t come out of Son of Rambow feeling good about life, reliving those bygone days of carefree childhood goofing off while humming the tune of closing credits song Close To Me by The Cure, then declare your inner child well and truly dead. It is a nostalgia trip well worth taking.