Hellboy II: The Golden Army – Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray Reviews, Film, Reviews, Top Story



There’s little doubt that Comic Book and Superhero related movies ruled the roost when it came to multiplexes this year. The Dark Knight broke box office records and may just be the best Comic Book movie ever made, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk showed a new creative direction for Marvel properties, and pictures like Wanted and Hancock tried somewhat successfully to take Comic pictures into a post-modern motif. Heck, we even got a Punisher movie that finally showed the sadistic nature of the character on the page. Unfortunately, it seems with all the triumphs for superheroes in 2008, one immensely creative movie got overlooked and unfairly got lost in the shuffle: Guillermo del Toro’s ridiculously entertaining Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

It’s hard to say just how the movie ended up doing only mediocre at the box office, especially considering inferior efforts like Hancock and the new Hulk film sold way more tickets and weren’t half as satisfying. More than likely the film was just another victim to The Dark Knight phenomenon, taking all the potential audience away from Hellboy’s fanbase, but it didn’t help that the first film was only moderately good, especially toward its conclusion. Building upon the first film and learning from his mistakes, Director del Toro crafted a film that upped his imagination and excised all the fat from the first picture.

Proof of this can be seen in elements such as needless characters, like the obviously studio mandated BPRD Agent Myers (Rupert Evans) from the first movie, being cut from this picture. The first film tried too hard to almost make Myers the main character, instead of Hellboy himself, which seemed to hamstring the original movie a bit. With that character out of the way, we’re able to focus more on the amazing work of Ron Perlman as the title character, and give room to much more interesting supporting players.

Some stars simply shine when put in makeup, letting the prosthetics completely take over while allowing them into their characters (look at Roddy McDowall in the Planet of the Apes films or Mickey Rourke in Sin City), and without a doubt Ron Perlman falls into this category. Mike Mignola’s character from Comic Book page always came off as a working stiff first and foremost despite his appearance, and that is exactly what Perlman brings to HB in every second of these films. He’s just some dude that loves being himself, and doesn’t want to be treated any differently than your average Joe. He just wants to drink and smoke, puts in his day’s work and settle down with his woman, and if he just wasn’t a 7 ft tall demon, working for a secret organization defending us from monsters just like him, he’d be a completely happy guy.

It’s that constant conflict that cuts to the core of this movie. Hellboy’s happy just to be a blue-collar guy, but there’s always a world crisis he has to attend, and in this movie there’s a doozy; a mythical prince is trying to resuscitate The Golden Army, a mechanical nightmare that will lay waste to humanity. While working on the problem, Hellboy and his compatriots are also exposed to the public, but not readily accepted as he expected, so this dichotomy of a demon working to save humanity (who may not even want his help) becomes more fractured as the movie goes along. This only serves to bring out his humanity even more, as Hellboy’s tireless efforts only further solidifies his humanity, no matter how red he is.

It’s a wonderfully intimate story that Guillermo del Toro tells about HB, one punctuated with a lot of humor, and given a backdrop that is absolutely stunning to behold at times. The amount of imagination that went into this movie can be breathtaking, and the movie’s centerpiece, “The Troll Market,” is a masterwork of fantasy creation. The comparisons to the Mos Eisly Cantina in Star Wars are pretty apt, as your eye can’t even really keep up with all the creatures that are thrown out at you. It’s been years since a movie was able to make such as strong case for practical effects and makeup, but this film is just further proof that the same kind of charm cant be duplicated within CGI monsters that you can with flesh and blood creations.

Fans that were disappointed with the last movies lack of monsters neednt worry this time out, as you get more creatures here than in a classic Jim Henson movie, and not only that, each one looks like an original type of creation, rather than a popular or stereotypical look for any of them. We even get a new member to the B.P.R.D. team, in addition to HB, Selma Blairs Liz, and Doug Jones aquatic Abe Sapien, with Johann Krauss (James Dodd, voiced by Seth MacFarlane) an ectoplasmic entity contained within a steam-punk type of containment suit. Krauss, a fan favorite from the original comics, is hilarious here, with MacFarlanes over the top German accent doing wonders to give this character personality, and the costumes cool aesthetic giving you even more eye candy while youre at it.

Finally, perhaps the other big complaint about the first movie was that it fell a little short when it came to action, but it would be tough to make that claim this go round, with fun sequences like the “Tooth Fairy” massacre at the films beginning and the final showdown with the Golden Army at the films conclusion never skimping on the visceral impact. From small rounds of fisticuffs and sword fights to the movies epic conclusion, each fight is packed with energy, but not weighed down with terrible editing or bad cinematography. Much like the work done of del Toros Blade II, each fight in this movie is unique to fit is own mood in the film, but never hyper stylized to the point where you cant tell whats going on. The man just simply knows how to shoot an action scene, and to some degree thats getting to be more of a rarity these days.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army was one of the gems of 2008, but largely went unappreciated. Hopefully, on Blu-ray and DVD this can be rectified somewhat, as more and more can discover its charms without having to immediately choose whether to watch this movie over The Dark Knight. Those that will finally give it a chance will find a movie with more creativity than 10 “run of the mill” blockbusters, filled with incredible whimsy and action, and most importantly what seems like an actual soul at its center.

The print on this Blu-ray disc is pretty amazing, as we get to see all the amazing sights that Director del Toro packed in this movie with incredible detail. The wide range of colors from the Troll Market and the final Golden Army chamber just pop onscreen, as do the minute little cracks in Mr. Winks body.

The sound is also pretty impressive, especially during the movies raucous last act or during the movies Barry Manilow music sequence. In DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, Hellboy II has the goods you want to make you feel every gunshot and every time stone-handed punch. This is another movie made for Blu-ray.

Director Commentary with Guillermo del Toro – This is a pretty terrific track. Honestly, the best part comes at the films beginning though, when he talks about the puppet sequence, which was actually brought about because of the films limited budget. He talks about how it actually worked out better for the movie, because it was able to introduce the Golden Army without actually filming it.

Cast Commentary with Tambor, Blair and Goss – I like this track a lot. The actors are all very frank about the production and seemed to have a lot of fun making it, which I think comes across. My favorite part has Blair talking about the filming of the Tooth Fairy sequence, and how the director actually had to stop her and tell her to stop saying “bang” every time she acted like she was shooting her pistol. Its little things like that give this track a lot of personality.

Schufften Google View – This is a BD Exclusive feature that allows you to see the effects in the film at various stages. Along with the Directors Notebook feature, this allows you to see effects from concept to finish.

BD Live – This feature has an animated sequence showing this history of the Troll Market, drawn by BPRD Artist Guy Davis.

Animated Comic Book – An animated postscript to the movie sets up a possible sequel. Fans of Comic should like references to characters from Mike Mignolas universe.

Hellboy II: In Service of the Demon – Ever shelled out the extra cash for a special edition DVD that promised a lot of features, but then found out that all of the features together lasted about 45 minutes? Well, dont expect that here. In this documentary alone, you get two and a half hours of Hellboy II production footage. This is exhaustive, Lord of the Rings-type coverage, looking at every possible corner of information on this movie. This is one of those documentaries that seems to never run out of stuff to talk about, from the movies initial production meetings to post production and putting the finishing touches on this gorgeous film. Just as an example, look at the footage just covering Luke Goss makeup routine on the movie, and youve got what would probably be a whole feature on another movie. Here, its just a miniscule portion of this documentary.

Production Workshop: Puppet Theatre – Covering the puppet sequence from origins to final product, this goes about five minutes.

Troll Market Tour – This is a neat Featurette, with del Toro actually giving you a walkthrough of the awesome Troll Market set, letting you know what changes had to be made to make the set more cinematic, as well as letting you in on little anecdotes about the filming and injokes concerning the set itself.

Deleted Scenes

Image Galleries

Honestly, theres so much stuff in this movie, you could write a whole book on just how much thought and effort went into this production. Hellboy II: The Golden Army is one of the best crowd-pleasers of the year, and this is the BD it deserves. With hours and hours of extras, Hellboy lovers will be in absolute heaven.

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Universal presents Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Starring Ron Perlman, Selman Blair, Doug Jones, Jeffery Tambor, James Dodd, Seth MacFarlane and Luke Goss. Written by Guillermo del Toro. Running time: 120 minutes. Rated PG-13. Released on Blu-ray: Nov 11, 2008. Available at Amazon.

Robert Sutton feels the most at home when he's watching some movie scumbag getting blown up, punched in the face, or kung fu'd to death, especially in that order. He's a founding writer for the movies section of Insidepulse.com, featured in his weekly column R0BTRAIN's Badass Cinema as well as a frequent reviewer of DVDs and Blu-rays. Also, he's a proud Sony fanboy, loves everything Star Wars and Superman related and hopes to someday be taken seriously by his friends and family.