Hellboy

Hellboy, Vol. 2: Wake the Devil (v. 2)
$17.95
An improvement over Hellboy, Vol. 1: Seed of Destruction (v. 1), this is where the ongoing story of Hellboy truly begins. First off, Mignola handles all the writing this time around, and his style really starts to show, as there's a lot less narration and a lot more showing what's happening. Things really get rolling for the rest of the series, with cliffhangers and villains introduced, instead of the complete story told in the first volume. This may be its main flaw, as there's no real resolution at the end, but it certainly makes you want to read the rest.

The art is, as always, stylish and great-looking. Mignola's dark, flat colors make this one of the most unique comics around, and I open it up quite often just to flip through quickly and take in the beautiful scenes inside. All around I really recommend this book, and the entire rest of the series.

Hellboy II The Golden Army Hellboy Action Figure
$25.00
OK, this is from my perspective as a Dad of how much my son is loving & playing with this toy. Non-stop. I was a little skeptical introducing my 11-year old to HellBoy but he became hooked! The more over-the-top Hellboy is the more he likes him. The HellboyII movie and action figure are his best. "Just look at the Big Baby gun Isn't awesome looking? I wish they would make another movie soon so I can make up more adventures for my HellBoy" This toy is now on this revered single shelf toys, which only the best he likes makes the cut, and HellBoy is one of the three.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Widescreen)
$19.98
Not only is this a great movie to watch, but the feature on blu-ray is complimented with some of the best special features I've ever seen. Aside from the horrible idea called U-control, the second disc is a sugar-coated geek-treat for those of us who love behind-the-scenes. Guillermo Del Toro knows excatly what we want to see when we look through special features: Pre-Production, Production, and Post VIDEOS. I'm tired of seeing special features on blu-rays with pages of reading. I can go to wikipedia for that. The director, I'm sure, watches a lot of other directors' work and admires their clips behind the camera. So he made his own and made us fans all proud.

Universal, on the other hand, needs to take advice from Del Toro. Give us clips, not 5 movie tracks with different text and buttons coming out of every corner of the screen. It doesn't matter if U-control is user-friendly or not. The problem is that it is tedious and boring. Give us the feature film with one or two commentaries to choose from. Then gives us a picture in picture track to pay homage to the gift of blu-ray. Then leave it alone and pack all the behind the scenes raw footage on disc two. Nobody reads the fun facts while your movie plays, or rewinds the scene so he can catch every bit of his/her pre-visualization clip. Make special features that people can enjoy, and people might actually start watching them.



Now to the movie. Sorry, I digressed on the extras, but the appreciation of this blu-ray mainly comes from the admiration of the effort the director took to make a great disc 2. Anyway, Hellboy 2 is way better than it's predecessor. It's pacing, style, and story are all perfected in this sequel. Did you think Hellboy 1 was missing something? Well Hellboy 2 found it. It found a more enjoyable villain, a richer color pallette, and much more. The action has grown a lot more memorable in this one, due to choreography and CGI improvements. I'm proud to see that Guillermo has found the balance between CGI and practical effects that we all longed for. In addition to all these great improvements, the small things like humor and music compliment the movie even more, and make this Guillermo's most well-rounded film to date, besides Pan's Labyrinth.

What is my favorite part of this movie you ask? Probably the strong creativity it has. Theres so many interesting creatures and scenery that you have never seen before within this movie. Watch it again after you've seen it once, and I guarantee you, you will see something new. Hellboy 2 is a beautiful film that does justice to the poorly received first film. Most people weren't drawn in by the first movie, but by now, we're all ready for a sequel. Thank you Guillermo for giving us a great film with a blu-ray that makes all others look impaired.

Hellboy
$14.94
In the search for wonder weapons, the Nazis allowed themselves to listen to a certain man by the name of Rasputin. Many people would know him as "the mad monk" or other terms, but the Nazis only saw a way t make a quick buck. I wish the movie could have brought about how he survived his fall better, how the seven didn't just have the power but there was also a certain witch named Baba Yaga that had quite the way with this world, but movies can only do so much. This movie did quite a bit, too, taking many of the things fromt he first ansd second graphic novel and giving them to an audience that wants. Mignola said that the answers he gave here made him feel a little bad, too, so the graphic novel readers were rewarded by getting explanations they may have otherwise found themselves without. In my world, that's a win-win on both fronts.

As far as the movie fgoes, it had a little bit of everything. There were the fables that mixed with the Hellboy flavor, introducing Nazis that readers would recognize but adding them with a twist. Seeing these things move on the screen was beautiful, too, because i really didn't expect so much from Hellboy going into the primetime. Still, add a great director, imput from the writer, and Ron P. (the only person i can see being Hellboy) and you have yourself a set-up. Then add in other things like the CGi that blended in beautifully, Chtulu-spawned beasts that were shout outs by both director and writer, and you have yourself a great story. It has pieces that make it a little bit of eveything, too, from the coedy styling of a joke here or a beast there and you have youself something that shines on the screen.
In the beginning I had my reservations, too, but the end product made me a happy camper.

For fans of the series, this is a great thing. From people who do not know anything about the series, it is something grerat with a title that echoes the Pulp comic days of yore. There are all sorts of things that are good to have here, garnering high priase from someone that has followed ( and reviewed) almost everything that has Hellboy in its pages. And I loved what was made here, much to my surprise.
Heavily recommended.