Hellboy 2 Review

Upon seeing the trailer for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army I thought: 'That looks really good, but it looks like a better movie than the first movie did from its trailer.' I had not seen the first Hellboy movie upon viewing the second; deciding that if I wanted more after watching The Golden Army, I could still watch the first movie. I can now say with confidence that the second movie cannot have been better than the first, despite still not having seen the first, simply for the fact that the second was so abysmal that if it had been an improvement over the first, the movies would have been forcibly stopped there with no chance for any sequels.

I was quite disappointed with the movie as (I thought) the trailer made it look so good. The plot (no spoilers) involves the prince of a forgotten elven race coming back to piece together a magic crowd so that they can command the Golden Army to destroy the human race. The main protagonists who aim to stop this plot include Hellboy, Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien and I'm going to throw in the name of Johann Krauss for reasons mentioned below.

In the film, Hellboy (despite 57% of his name) displays absolutely no abilities that you would attribute to someone with 'hell' being in their name: no fire manipulation, no summoning demons to do his bidding, nothing. Though I mustn't complain as this is true of the original comic Hellboy also. Instead I will only take issue with the fact that despite his other verified abilities (see the wiki page on him but they include invulnerability and accelerated healing factor) all he does in the movie is provide a battering ram that will run into or shoot any obstacle he is faced with, leaving us with no doubt that he retains his superhuman strength from the comics but uncertainty as to the rest of his alleged abilities, not to mention the fact that it gets kind of old.

Liz Sherman is the resident pyrokinetic of the group (the B.P.R.D). Does this mean that we'll see a bunch of cool flamethrowing sequences? The answer is no. Liz uses her fire manipulation abilities so scarcely that, if the aforementioned events were counted up through the movie's entirety, it would equal the number of minutes in the movie (out of 120) that did not contain a gaping plot hole. Her relationship with Hellboy through the whole movie is a display of how movie makers deal with the romantic relationships they introduce (not consistent with the comics of course) in first movies to make sure that every movie has a love story (I'm still fuming about Get Smart the movie!). The love story is all of: drawn out, pointless and relentlessly boring - a thorn in the sides of viewers watching an already thorny movie.

Abe Sapien is essentially a frog-man; living underwater and only able to walk on land with a breathing apparatus resembling a toilet-seat. Curiously enough, the breathing apparatus begins to disappear throughout the movie, as Sapien is freely walking around their base with no such aid. Are we to believe that he can hold his breath for a very long time? Should we suppose that there is some difference between needing a breathing apparatus in some places but not in others? The answer is that we do neither and simply add it to the already lengthy plot holes list, along with the elf prince not taking the last piece of the crowd despite the fact that it is right in front of him - he obviously thinks it's a better idea to watch the giant shrub-man he released as a distraction die; this seems a bit pointless and ironic to me.

Lastly, Johann Krauss (spelt Kraus in the comics) is a gas-man (I hope you're starting to see a pattern here: fire-woman, aqua-man, giant shrub-man, gas-man - it seems as if alot of the ideas stem from mixing an element (the old concept of elements) with a person and seeing what comes out) that can take control of essentially anything he desires, though we see as much use of this ability in the movie as Liz's pyrokinesis. The sole reason that I mention him is that his voice is provided by Seth MacFarlane, whom I am a fan of.

In summary, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army was a thoroughly disappointing movie. The only good thing about it was the very creative and good looking creatures provided by (I think) Guillermo del Toro - seen also in Pan's Labyrinth and Blade II. The plot (including the holes and the awful ending) could make you cry and the relationship stuff even more so (and not in a good way) and as such, Hellboy 2 receives a 1 The Marine DVD out of 10, with the awesome creatures receiving 10 Reapers (from Blade II) out of 10. It is a worrying concept that there will be a Hellboy 3 made.

30 Rock Season 1 Review

I was recently introduced to 30 Rock by a friend of mine, and was pleasantly surprised by this - until now - undiscovered (by me) comedy show.

The show (at least insofar as I have watched) centres on the writers and actors of a comedy show for NBC as they hire a new actor slash former movie star to re-energise their show as demanded by their new boss, played (well) by Alec Baldwin. 30 Rock features many familiar faces such as Tina Fey, the aforementioned Alec Baldwin, Jack McBrayer, Jane Krakowski, Scott Adsit and a very familiar looking lady whose name I do not know at the moment, all of whom I have seen before but cannot recall from what without imdb; with the exceptions of Jack McBrayer from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Alec Baldwin from Friends.

I half expected the comedy, whilst obviously being funny as the show is still on television, to nonetheless be quite similar to other comedies I have seen that appear similar at first glance. I was fortunately mistaken on the half that I half expected, as the unconventional (at least to me) humour provided by 30 Rock was both successful in its delivery and unique in its conception.

I have watched half of the first season so far and am simultaneously very glad I was introduced to this television show and slightly shocked that I have never seen it before now, as it began airing in October 2006. I am currently 2:33 into an episode featuring Wayne Brady from Whose Line is it Anyway? for those Foxtel-watchers and episode-downloaders and Don't Forget the Lyrics for those of you that watch regular TV, and thus I have a good feeling about the remainder of the epsiode, entitled The Source Awards.

I wish to thank Nicole for presenting the show to me, thank Tina Fey for writing (and starring in) it (and for turning up in funny things I watch every now and again) and thank you for reading. 30 Rock receives 10 Scrubs out of 10 for its good humour and original concepts.

Sex Drive Review

Ah, the road-trip-type movie. Been done before? Absolutely. Long dead? Absolutely not. I did fear that after Eurotrip and Road Trip there would be no more hysterically funny movies involving the conveyance of a group of humorous protagonists across a vast expanse of land (I know there have been some funny ones since then but none really compared to the originals did they?).

This movie starts off in the usual manner; teenage boy, ordinary life, not-too exciting job and promises of relations with a female if he carts his ass across the country (in this movie, it's not too far actually). The central protagonist Ian's country-crossing friends are revealed to be the long-time-crush-but-just-best-friend Felicia and the sex-craving-Stifler-stereotype Lance. Especially in Lance's case I thought the repeated cliché of a sex-starved male would be tedious and old but I was very pleasantly surprised.

Enter (he actually came in beforehand but I just wanted to say it) James Marsden, better known as Cyclops from X-Men. In this, he plays Ian's older brother Rex. And he does it well. Every second he is on screen I found myself laughing more than any other movie has made me laugh in a long time. Not to mention what he does at the end of the film (I'm not going to say it here - go and see the movie for yourself!).

The trek across a part of America (the starting point and destination escape my memory right now) in the stolen/borrowed GTO belonging to Rex is embarked upon early, allowing for the non-stop laugh-fest that ensues as the characters run into a very strange hitch-hiker (David Koechner), a very knowledgeable Amish man (Seth Green) a very popular band (Fall Out Boy) and (to paraphrase) a series of very unfortunate but nevertheless utterly hilarious events. I give this movie 10 uproariously stolen GTOs out of 10, as in my opinion it is the funniest movie I've seen in a while, leaving other recently released funny movies such as 'Superbad' and 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' (both very good in their own right) in the dust.

The Marine Review

The Marine. This was the worst, plot-less, poorly acted, nonsensical, illogical insult to the film industry (and to the laws of physics; but I've long since learned to deal with that due to the rest of Hollywood's movies) I've ever seen.

As I mentioned; the plot (if you can call it that) was barely existent and was ridiculously childish at best. The fact that Rome's (the main bad guy) plans kept changing and becoming increasingly unjustifiable and more stupid as the movie progressed annoyed me (along with his unbelievable persistence to keep the kidnapped wife alive despite her being the most detrimental thing to their plans since their moronic conception).

I won't reveal anything but the ending was ludicrous to the point of hilarity, however I fear the writers intended us to accept it seriously (though it makes the fact that John Cena jumps (or unrealistically throws someone into) almost every prop imaginable seem almost plausible).

The only reason I watched this movie in its entirety was because I wanted to see Robert Patrick play out this bad guy and I had already paid the $1 to rent the movie (in hindsight; not worth it). The sole not-unbearable aspect of the movie was the one "Terminator" reference that Robert Patrick responds to.

Perhaps it is my disappointment tending towards hostility that causes me to give this movie a (probably unfair) 1/10 due to not only the waste of 93 minutes of my life but also the strain of my eyes caused by the multitude of terribly fake explosions, but if I can save another human being from my fate then the 93 minutes of movie watching and 10 minutes of review writing will be well worth it.