'Hellboy II: The Golden Army' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Josh's review of 'Hellboy II: The Golden Army' is up. He says this is a step down from the first one. This Blu-ray has nice video and audio and plethora of bonus features. Recommended.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1437/hellboyii.html

[Windows V]

THANK YOU!!! Finally, someone else agrees that the plot phails compared to the first one. Fantastic art direction alone DOES NOT a movie make.

[project-blu]

Josh, I'm in your camp on U-Control. Big ups on just saying it. It's a neat feature but DAMN does it need work.

I also think it was very appropriate to mention the loss of David Hyde Pierce. I love his work, so I was majorly bummed when I hear he wasn't voicing Abe this time.

Nice review!

[project-blu]

and Windows V, i agree, the first is a better overall movie in terms of it's narrative.

[Geonosis]

I think the budget impacted the vision, throughout the features he mentions things he really wanted to do. The opening sequence for example was going to be live action, epic and massive. The Golden Army Chamber and troll city the same thing, also Cathedral Head (the map shop keeper) was going to have mini-people living on his head, etc. I really loved the movie, the creatures and visuals are great and the story is very good. The execution isn't perfect but I just love the film.

[lowtek]

Only 4 stars PQ? I think it's deserving of 5. Damn fine looking movie.

[BreakAtmo]

Originally Posted by project-blu

I also think it was very appropriate to mention the loss of David Hyde Pierce. I love his work, so I was majorly bummed when I hear he wasn't voicing Abe this time.

I'm a fan of David as well, but I hope you know that Doug Jones did Abe's dialogue for the scenes in Hellboy as well? I recently went to a panel with Doug at a convention, he explained the whole thing - the sole reason why David was brought in was to get a bigger name on the poster. Apparently, when David came in to do the dubbing, part of it involved listening to Doug's original performance, and he basically said, "What am I doing here?" Not only was Doug very upset about being dubbed over, David refused to take any credit or publicise the movie at all, out of respect to Doug. Class. I love David's work, but that role belongs to Doug, and I thought he did a great job in the film (funnily enough, I thought he sounded a lot like David in the role, to the extent that the voice change wasn't jarring at all to me).

I largely agree with the review regarding the fact that the story wasn't so great, but practically everything else was excellent, especially, IMO, the acting and visual design.

[Halfwasted]

Nice call on the movie not being up to snuff to the 1st movie's story, I totally agree with you!

[Master X]

I hated the first, this was much better imo but yeah 3 is still to high.

[ToddS]

A 4 for the audio and video is totaly ridiculous. Bad week Josh?

[Halfwasted]

Originally Posted by BreakAtmo

I largely agree with the review regarding the fact that the story wasn't so great, but practically everything else was excellent, especially, IMO, the acting and visual design.

A turd wrapped up with silk, is still a turd...

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by Master X

I hated the first, this was much better imo but yeah 3 is still to high.

Yeah, it comes no wear near those masterpieces called the Fast and the Furious.

[RandellG]

Originally Posted by Halfwasted

A turd wrapped up with silk, is still a turd...

Thought it was called diarrhea

[cooltobeyou]

This is a well written review, but I disagree with the score of the film. I think this and the first Hellboy are easily 4 star movies. I would agree that the story probably isn't as strong as the first one, but it tells the story it needs to tell very effeciently. After all, the movie is subtitled "The Golden Army," and I think the movie weaves the tale of the Golden Army adequately enough.

Besides the story, "Hellboy II" is better than the first movie in every possible way. The "tooth fairies" and "troll market" alone are worth the price of admission. Also, the robot Johan (sp?), is a much better character than the human agent from the first movie. I love the constant verbal sparring between him and Hellboy.

[BreakAtmo]

Originally Posted by Halfwasted

A turd wrapped up with silk, is still a turd...

'Not so great' =/= 'turd'.