Posts Tagged ‘hellboy 2’

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is now out on DVD! This was meant to be an advance review, but travel plans, a busy week and little desire to write this DVD review (DVD reviews just aren’t as fun to write as regular movie reviews) means that I’m writing this Tuesday night when I should be zoning out staring at the television. OK, I am still zoning out while staring at the television, but my fingers are apparently typing something that hopefully forms cohesive sentences.

The Guillermo Del Toro action-fantasy flick rushed into theaters with high hopes, good reviews and a great opening weekend. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to expectations, leaving the film to be a victim of opening weekend fanboy rush. Despite a great start, it plummeted in the weeks following. Regardless of its box office performance, Hellboy 2 was a bit of a disappointment for me. While still good, it felt as though Del Toro got caught up a little too much in making fantastic sets and creatures and lowered the priority of the pacing and action. Strangely, this exact flaw is what I was looking forward to in the film, as the first Hellboy was quite good – but not amazing – whereas Pan’s Labyrinth, Del Toro’s Oscar-nominated drama, was extraordinary. I figured a hybrid of the two would be downright awesome, but it just wasn’t.

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The new, full-length movie trailer for Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army is now online, and guess what? I watched it!

Yes, exciting news I know, but hold your breath because there’s more: I wrote a review about Hellboy 2‘s trailer! I know, it’s shocking that I of all people would cast my opinion so valiantly into the night, as if nothing frightened or shocked me, but it’s true. But enough about me, on with the Hellboy 2 movie trailer review…

I don’t know what it is about the big blockbuster movie trailers this year, but they are just not connecting with me. Am I being too picky? Maybe. Am I in a bad mood? I’ve been a bad mood all week. I’m not exactly sure what the reason is, but since I consider myself perfect, I’m going to blame someone else. The movie trailer for Hellboy 2 is… good. Good, but not great. It has a fair amount of action, some impressive special effects, so on and so forth, but once again, something just didn’t click for me. The setup for the characters and plot line seems uninspired, as if the trailer team was more intent on summarizing the film rather than promoting it. The introduction to the main villain at the beginning of the trailer seemed a bit too casual; the villain himself is never made out to be all that intimidating (besides being rather homely).

When Hellboy shows up, there isn’t that, “Ohhh, it’s Hellboy!” It’s more like, “Well, clearly it’s Hellboy. I saw that coming from a mile away.” Again, that might be overly picky, but I’m big on good setups in movie trailers – start off with a little mystery, present the threat, and then, in glorious fashion, present the solution. The Hellboy 2 trailer bypasses the mystery and doesn’t introduce the threat or solution in any amazing way.

All that being said, the movie trailer is still pretty entertaining. The dry humor is clearly still intact, and the theme music is back. There looks like they’ll be plenty of action and strange creatures, which is good. All in all, Hellboy 2 looks like it could end up being pretty good, but the movie trailer hasn’t convinced me of it.

More interesting to see will be whether Hellboy 2 does better than the original; it’s got the sequel thing going for it, but did the original gather that much of a following to make this sequel a true blockbuster sequel? I’m hesitant to say, “yes.”

Get the skinny on the movie at my Hellboy 2 details page.