While not a narrative feature, AMERICAN TEEN can provide a lot of insight into what to do right to feature writers.
SPOILER TANTRUM
The film follows a group of high school seniors as they navigate their way through their last year of high school and the beginnings of adulthood. Each kid has one issue – Hannah trying to find her place as an alternakid with big aspirations in a close-minded, small town, Colin hoping to land a basketball scholarship so he can go to school, Megan wrestling with getting into Notre Dame like the rest of her family, or Jake trying to get a girlfriend. By focusing on one storyline per kid, the film has a chance to develop a character arc – for example, Hannah getting dumped, dating a popular kid, and deciding to move away to San Francisco over her parent’s objections – for each of the major characters. It also chooses a wide variety of different social strata to pick the characters from, from the most popular kids in school to an attractive weirdo to a friendless loner.
There are some moments of real humor as well, made even more funny by the fact that they’re unscripted. These come out in interesting places, like when Jake gets dumped, and help leaven the pathos a bit.
Ultimately, the film feels so universal because if you weren’t one of these kids in high school, you knew them. And in retrospect, you’ve gone through all of the things these kids are going through, things that felt so important at the time but you later realized weren’t so pressing.
Watching the film, I realized that I still do and feel a lot of the same ways that these kids do. I may have grown up, gotten a job and my own place, but emotionally, my life hasn’t changed that much since high school. Only I get laid a lot more.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS - Character Development Up in Smoke
Comedies have it easier than almost any other kind of movie – if they’re funny, that’s really all that matters. While some of my favorite comedies are well-written (IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, PHILADELPHIA STORY, GROUNDHOG DAY, and TOOTSIE come to mind), others (CADDYSHACK, NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACTION, etc.) are not.
A BONGLOAD FULL OF SPOILERS BELOW…
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS has a lot going for it. It features two likeable leads and is consistently funny. Even though half the movie is watching guys getting stoned and hanging out, it’s very enjoyable.
It could have been an even better movie with a little more focus on the story and the characters however. The biggest flaw is that all of the friendship material that comes about at the climax of the film (Dale realizing he’s been a dick and that Saul is his best friend) is great stuff. Unfortunately, it’s not set up at all that his character weakness is not having any friends. So it comes out of nowhere and ultimately doesn’t amount to much. And it would have been very easy to integrate this setup in the existing structure of the film. When Dale goes to pick his high school girlfriend up and bumps into the creepy teacher played by Joe Lotruglio – that’s a missed opportunity. The creepy teacher could have gone to high school with Dale. And instead of just telling him to leave and being off-putting, he could have said something like “Oh, I see you’re still a stoner loser with no friends. That’s why you’re out trolling the high schools for chicks.” Not only would this have gotten across that Dale doesn’t have any friends, but it would’ve amped the tension up in the scene.
Saul doesn’t have much of a character arc either. Rogen and Goldberg could’ve given him something – perhaps building on his dream of becoming a civil engineer and having it where he goes back to school after all the events unfold.
The bad guys are similarly underdeveloped. While Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan have some meat to their relationship, Rosie Perez and Gary Cole are almost cardboard cutouts in terms of character depth.
And I don’t care how funny and charming Dale Denton is – there’s no way that someone who looks like Seth Rogen and who isn’t Seth Rogen with his fame and millions of dollars would be dating a hot high school senior.
A BONGLOAD FULL OF SPOILERS BELOW…
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS has a lot going for it. It features two likeable leads and is consistently funny. Even though half the movie is watching guys getting stoned and hanging out, it’s very enjoyable.
It could have been an even better movie with a little more focus on the story and the characters however. The biggest flaw is that all of the friendship material that comes about at the climax of the film (Dale realizing he’s been a dick and that Saul is his best friend) is great stuff. Unfortunately, it’s not set up at all that his character weakness is not having any friends. So it comes out of nowhere and ultimately doesn’t amount to much. And it would have been very easy to integrate this setup in the existing structure of the film. When Dale goes to pick his high school girlfriend up and bumps into the creepy teacher played by Joe Lotruglio – that’s a missed opportunity. The creepy teacher could have gone to high school with Dale. And instead of just telling him to leave and being off-putting, he could have said something like “Oh, I see you’re still a stoner loser with no friends. That’s why you’re out trolling the high schools for chicks.” Not only would this have gotten across that Dale doesn’t have any friends, but it would’ve amped the tension up in the scene.
Saul doesn’t have much of a character arc either. Rogen and Goldberg could’ve given him something – perhaps building on his dream of becoming a civil engineer and having it where he goes back to school after all the events unfold.
The bad guys are similarly underdeveloped. While Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan have some meat to their relationship, Rosie Perez and Gary Cole are almost cardboard cutouts in terms of character depth.
And I don’t care how funny and charming Dale Denton is – there’s no way that someone who looks like Seth Rogen and who isn’t Seth Rogen with his fame and millions of dollars would be dating a hot high school senior.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Comic Collection
As a fillm/sci-fi/fantasy dork, I have over the years amassed a giant comic and graphic novel collection. Which is now mostly taking up space in my brain and my home.
So, this is incredibly off-topic, but I will refer any interested readers to my Craigslist posting:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/784188242.html
Someone, please -- take these off my hands.
So, this is incredibly off-topic, but I will refer any interested readers to my Craigslist posting:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/784188242.html
Someone, please -- take these off my hands.
Monday, August 4, 2008
THE MUMMY 3: THIRD TIME’S EVEN MORE MEDIOCRE
I didn’t like the first MUMMY film and hated the second. So of course, I saw TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR opening weekend.
It has the same goofy tone as the rest of the MUMMY films. It also has the same weak plotting.
SPOILERS 3: TOMB OF A LAME SCRIPT
There are numerous times our hero and heroine are rescued by other people – by their son and his potential girlfriend in a museum; twice by Yetis (that are called by the girlfriend, beat up some soldiers for them, and shield them from an avalanche), one time by Michelle Yeoh’s magic fountain, once by an army of good undead guys, and once by John Hannah dropping the world’s most ineffective bomb on a car.
In order for an action adventure movie to be engaging, our hero has to face off against a villain who constantly backs him into a corner. And when all seems lost, our hero defies the odds and gets himself out of it. This makes him seem clever and effective. Having Rick and Evy constantly get into jams and other people then rescue them makes them seem weak and stupid. It's also unsatisfying to watch. We want to see Neo fight and defeat Agent Smith on his own, not have some CGI Abominable Snowman show up and bail his ass out.
Arcwise, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar give us a little of two things and not enough of either. Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello are married and bored because they promised each other not to adventure. And Brendan’s been a distant father to his son who desperately seeks his approval. Done right, the first arc gives us MR. AND MRS. SMITH, a great film about a couple whose marriage had gone stale because they lied to each other and how once they know the truth, it becomes exciting again. In M3, we don’t get anything of the sort other than some weak comedy about the two of them trying to have sex in the beginning and it not happening. As far as the father-son-arc, this all comes about through dialogue and doesn’t add up to much. A better way to have gone with it is to show O’Connell junior at the beginning, taking some crazy risks because he wants to make a name for himself and get out from under the shadow of his parents. Later in the film, Rick and Evy can save him from trouble and try to keep him safe. Then he sneaks out, getting in trouble trying to save the day on his own. By the end of the film, they’re all working together to beat the enemy.
The script also suffers from major logic problems. It feels like a few disconnected things that were thrown together. Rick and Evy happen to have a magical doohickey that can revive the Dragon Emperor; then the guy comes back as a terra cotta mummy for some reason; then he needs to find Shangri-La and get to its magical fountain to revive himself and become immortal; except there’s a cursed dagger that can kill him anyway (which means he’s not immortal), etc. It got muddled and confusing.
Making matters worse, he raised his terra cotta army – which if they reach the Great Wall would be unstoppable; but they’re not unstoppable before then, you can beat them by hitting them with a shovel. So that’s not very fearsome. Do they suddenly become non-crappy when they cross the wall?
And then after the DE is partially defeated, his army of lawn ornaments in ruins, for some reason he goes inside his old tomb and starts swirling mini-planets around. The movie never explains why he’s doing this or what the danger is. Without an army, he’s not that scary anymore. And he’s defeated by Brendan Fraser stabbing him with the magic knife, which is rather anticlimactic (and unrealistic) after we witness the DE turn into a dragon, a monster, and kill about a million zombies with his bare hands and magic.
There’s also some really weak humor, including two bits involving a yak. Sadly, the screening I attended was almost sold out (thanks to dopes like me), so I’m sure a fourth installment is on the way.
It has the same goofy tone as the rest of the MUMMY films. It also has the same weak plotting.
SPOILERS 3: TOMB OF A LAME SCRIPT
There are numerous times our hero and heroine are rescued by other people – by their son and his potential girlfriend in a museum; twice by Yetis (that are called by the girlfriend, beat up some soldiers for them, and shield them from an avalanche), one time by Michelle Yeoh’s magic fountain, once by an army of good undead guys, and once by John Hannah dropping the world’s most ineffective bomb on a car.
In order for an action adventure movie to be engaging, our hero has to face off against a villain who constantly backs him into a corner. And when all seems lost, our hero defies the odds and gets himself out of it. This makes him seem clever and effective. Having Rick and Evy constantly get into jams and other people then rescue them makes them seem weak and stupid. It's also unsatisfying to watch. We want to see Neo fight and defeat Agent Smith on his own, not have some CGI Abominable Snowman show up and bail his ass out.
Arcwise, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar give us a little of two things and not enough of either. Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello are married and bored because they promised each other not to adventure. And Brendan’s been a distant father to his son who desperately seeks his approval. Done right, the first arc gives us MR. AND MRS. SMITH, a great film about a couple whose marriage had gone stale because they lied to each other and how once they know the truth, it becomes exciting again. In M3, we don’t get anything of the sort other than some weak comedy about the two of them trying to have sex in the beginning and it not happening. As far as the father-son-arc, this all comes about through dialogue and doesn’t add up to much. A better way to have gone with it is to show O’Connell junior at the beginning, taking some crazy risks because he wants to make a name for himself and get out from under the shadow of his parents. Later in the film, Rick and Evy can save him from trouble and try to keep him safe. Then he sneaks out, getting in trouble trying to save the day on his own. By the end of the film, they’re all working together to beat the enemy.
The script also suffers from major logic problems. It feels like a few disconnected things that were thrown together. Rick and Evy happen to have a magical doohickey that can revive the Dragon Emperor; then the guy comes back as a terra cotta mummy for some reason; then he needs to find Shangri-La and get to its magical fountain to revive himself and become immortal; except there’s a cursed dagger that can kill him anyway (which means he’s not immortal), etc. It got muddled and confusing.
Making matters worse, he raised his terra cotta army – which if they reach the Great Wall would be unstoppable; but they’re not unstoppable before then, you can beat them by hitting them with a shovel. So that’s not very fearsome. Do they suddenly become non-crappy when they cross the wall?
And then after the DE is partially defeated, his army of lawn ornaments in ruins, for some reason he goes inside his old tomb and starts swirling mini-planets around. The movie never explains why he’s doing this or what the danger is. Without an army, he’s not that scary anymore. And he’s defeated by Brendan Fraser stabbing him with the magic knife, which is rather anticlimactic (and unrealistic) after we witness the DE turn into a dragon, a monster, and kill about a million zombies with his bare hands and magic.
There’s also some really weak humor, including two bits involving a yak. Sadly, the screening I attended was almost sold out (thanks to dopes like me), so I’m sure a fourth installment is on the way.
STEPBROTHERS MIA 2: I WANT TO BELIEVE
Saw a bunch of films because I have no life and that’s what I enjoy doing. Double-featured SB and MM.
Sadly, SB was the best of the bunch by far.
I’VE GOT SPOILERS FROM MY CHEST-PUBES TO MY BALL-FRO
STEBROTHERS
Criticizing STEPBROTHERS for having a weak script is like faulting McDonald’s for not being nutritious. I enjoyed the film and laughed consistently. There are some funny setpieces and several great jokes. At the end of the day, though, the film is forgettable because we don’t care about the characters.
As far as arcs go, Will Ferrell is a good singer but has stage fright (because of his dicky brother) and John C. Reilly owns a drum set and gets mad when you rub your sack on it. Since that’s all Ferrell and Adam McKay give us for goals and motivation, it’s not that big of a deal when the two rock out “Volare” (hilariously sung for some odd reason to the music for “Con Te Partiro”) at the end. With a couple less jokes and maybe a few more lines, these snippets of motivation could have been expanded into some additional dialogue and plot. Maybe John C. Reilly can’t work with other people. He’s been kicked out of fifty bands, despite his great drumming. Maybe we see him and Will try to perform, they get in an argument, and Will can’t sing in public. A little something would have gone a long way towards making us care that the two characters get what they want.
The script could also have used a little editing to parse the structure into a more traditional three-act template rather than the meandering flow it has going on for it.
But kudos for having a woman tell John C. Reilly she wanted to roll him up in a ball and carry him around in her vagina.
MAMMA MIA!
I love Abba. Some would say that makes me gay. But it doesn’t. My love of cock does.
I also love musicals. MM was very disappointing.
First, the story was lacking. Musicals don’t even need great stories or complicated plotting. My favorite of all time is CATS, and that’s basically just a thread of redemption plot used to string together unrelated cat songs (and damn those cats for not choosing Mr. Mistoffeles, the original conjuring cat, to go to the Heaviside Layer). MM gives us a girl whose mom was a bit of a player back in the day. She slept with three guys around the same time, leaving our heroine – who is about to get married – with no idea which one is her daddy. So she invites all three to the wedding, hoping to figure it out.
This leads to… Not much. Meryl Streep gets a little annoyed. And our heroine’s fiancé
is bothered that she snuck around and didn’t tell him. And that’s about it. What the movie should have done is have the heroine’s plan backfire horribly. Her fiancé calls off the wedding because he feels she doesn’t trust him. And her mom is so freaked out by the sight of these three men from her past that she goes AWOL. Then the heroine and her three possible fathers must track down the mom and the fiancée and make everything right again.
There are also way too many songs. I love almost everything Abba does, but by the time “Take a Chance On Me” kicks in, the movie’s ended. Then there are like ten more songs, including some credits numbers. And did we need Colin Firth singing about Paris?
Also, the film does things, like making Colin Firth gay – that happen too quickly. I was confused when he was frolicking around with a fey Italian guy. And please, Hollywood, let’s retire pairing everyone up at the end of romantic comedies. It’s enough the hero and heroine get together. We don’t need Stellan Skarsgard and the Hobbit ending up in love as well.
And Pierce Brosnan does a lot of things well, including being Bond and playing likeable scumbags. Singing is not one of those things.
X-FILES 2
Loved the TV show until it went off the rails. Liked the first movie and how it expanded the mythology and the characters.
X-FILES 2 hits the theme and characters correctly. It sets up a conflict between Mulder and Scully – he can’t stop his work and she can’t be with him unless he does. And we get some interesting scenes with a pedophile priest hoping for redemption through visions that may enable him to save an FBI agent.
But the rest of the script is awful. It’s fine to do a monster-of-the-week plot, those were some of the best episodes of the show. But this monster is a pair of completely mundane gay Russian organ couriers. That’s not scary, it’s just odd. Proving the bad guy is nothing special, Scully takes him out with a board to the head. Which makes the fact that he killed Amanda Peet’s special agent (by pushing her down an elevator shaft in a construction site) even sadder.
If we’re going to watch Scully and Mulder return after six years, let’s give them something worthy of their time – a vampire, aliens, a dude that eats peoples’ livers, even those inbred freaks from “Home.” This wasn't just a bad X-FILES movie, it was one of the worst episodes of the show.
Sadly, SB was the best of the bunch by far.
I’VE GOT SPOILERS FROM MY CHEST-PUBES TO MY BALL-FRO
STEBROTHERS
Criticizing STEPBROTHERS for having a weak script is like faulting McDonald’s for not being nutritious. I enjoyed the film and laughed consistently. There are some funny setpieces and several great jokes. At the end of the day, though, the film is forgettable because we don’t care about the characters.
As far as arcs go, Will Ferrell is a good singer but has stage fright (because of his dicky brother) and John C. Reilly owns a drum set and gets mad when you rub your sack on it. Since that’s all Ferrell and Adam McKay give us for goals and motivation, it’s not that big of a deal when the two rock out “Volare” (hilariously sung for some odd reason to the music for “Con Te Partiro”) at the end. With a couple less jokes and maybe a few more lines, these snippets of motivation could have been expanded into some additional dialogue and plot. Maybe John C. Reilly can’t work with other people. He’s been kicked out of fifty bands, despite his great drumming. Maybe we see him and Will try to perform, they get in an argument, and Will can’t sing in public. A little something would have gone a long way towards making us care that the two characters get what they want.
The script could also have used a little editing to parse the structure into a more traditional three-act template rather than the meandering flow it has going on for it.
But kudos for having a woman tell John C. Reilly she wanted to roll him up in a ball and carry him around in her vagina.
MAMMA MIA!
I love Abba. Some would say that makes me gay. But it doesn’t. My love of cock does.
I also love musicals. MM was very disappointing.
First, the story was lacking. Musicals don’t even need great stories or complicated plotting. My favorite of all time is CATS, and that’s basically just a thread of redemption plot used to string together unrelated cat songs (and damn those cats for not choosing Mr. Mistoffeles, the original conjuring cat, to go to the Heaviside Layer). MM gives us a girl whose mom was a bit of a player back in the day. She slept with three guys around the same time, leaving our heroine – who is about to get married – with no idea which one is her daddy. So she invites all three to the wedding, hoping to figure it out.
This leads to… Not much. Meryl Streep gets a little annoyed. And our heroine’s fiancé
is bothered that she snuck around and didn’t tell him. And that’s about it. What the movie should have done is have the heroine’s plan backfire horribly. Her fiancé calls off the wedding because he feels she doesn’t trust him. And her mom is so freaked out by the sight of these three men from her past that she goes AWOL. Then the heroine and her three possible fathers must track down the mom and the fiancée and make everything right again.
There are also way too many songs. I love almost everything Abba does, but by the time “Take a Chance On Me” kicks in, the movie’s ended. Then there are like ten more songs, including some credits numbers. And did we need Colin Firth singing about Paris?
Also, the film does things, like making Colin Firth gay – that happen too quickly. I was confused when he was frolicking around with a fey Italian guy. And please, Hollywood, let’s retire pairing everyone up at the end of romantic comedies. It’s enough the hero and heroine get together. We don’t need Stellan Skarsgard and the Hobbit ending up in love as well.
And Pierce Brosnan does a lot of things well, including being Bond and playing likeable scumbags. Singing is not one of those things.
X-FILES 2
Loved the TV show until it went off the rails. Liked the first movie and how it expanded the mythology and the characters.
X-FILES 2 hits the theme and characters correctly. It sets up a conflict between Mulder and Scully – he can’t stop his work and she can’t be with him unless he does. And we get some interesting scenes with a pedophile priest hoping for redemption through visions that may enable him to save an FBI agent.
But the rest of the script is awful. It’s fine to do a monster-of-the-week plot, those were some of the best episodes of the show. But this monster is a pair of completely mundane gay Russian organ couriers. That’s not scary, it’s just odd. Proving the bad guy is nothing special, Scully takes him out with a board to the head. Which makes the fact that he killed Amanda Peet’s special agent (by pushing her down an elevator shaft in a construction site) even sadder.
If we’re going to watch Scully and Mulder return after six years, let’s give them something worthy of their time – a vampire, aliens, a dude that eats peoples’ livers, even those inbred freaks from “Home.” This wasn't just a bad X-FILES movie, it was one of the worst episodes of the show.
Friday, July 25, 2008
THE STRANGERS - Strange Script
This was another film I was jazzed about. I'm a huge horror fan, and I'd heard great things about Bryan Bertino's script, which was a quarter-finalist in the Nicholl Fellowship competition the Academy puts on.
SPOILERS, SCHMOILERS...
I thought the setup was good -- we got two people deeply in love with each other who have a problem. He proposed and she said no, now it's awkward and they're stuck in a remote vacation home together for the weekend dealing with the consequences.
The first time one of the strangers pops up with a mask on, standing in the background, it scared everybody in the audience. But the film repeats this shot about twenty times, so it quickly loses its impact.
The story suffers from a lot of poor choices. The heroes don't seem particularly intelligent. It's a guy and a girl in a house with a gun. Verus a fat wheezy guy and two seemingly hot girls. Shotgun should win out every time. Even after the hero accidentally kills his friend, there's no reason for him to leave the safety of the closet he's in and give up his advantage.
There are other dopey decisions the hero and heroine make. At one point, they're in their car trying to back out of the driveway and escape. The bad guy's truck rams them from behind. In front of them -- a chick in a mask. What does the hero do? Get out of the car and run. How about running down the asshole in front of you? They're not stronger than a truck.
The guy and girl get into and out of the house so many times, it becomes exhausting to watch and suck all the tension out of the proceedings. There's nothing for them to do other than react in shock every time a masked weirdo shows up; so Bertino tries to give the script some business by having an old CB radio out in the garage. As soon as the heroine gets to it, the bad guys smash it. Not very interesting or unique.
And the script doesn't even have a point at the end -- we watch as the good guy and girl are brutally stabbed. If I'm going to watch someone be terrorized for an hour and a half, I at least want them to kick some ass on the bad guys at some point (the major flaw of FUNNY GAMES as well -- although that sucks worse because the heroine gets her revenge and the director "rewinds" the movie and undoes it).
Smart heroes are always more fun to watch. And how do you make them smart? By having the bad guys do intelligent things that back the heroes into a corner, then the heroes figure a way out of it. Having mundane bad guys do boring things leaves our protagonists simply reacting. And that's not satisfying dramatically.
SPOILERS, SCHMOILERS...
I thought the setup was good -- we got two people deeply in love with each other who have a problem. He proposed and she said no, now it's awkward and they're stuck in a remote vacation home together for the weekend dealing with the consequences.
The first time one of the strangers pops up with a mask on, standing in the background, it scared everybody in the audience. But the film repeats this shot about twenty times, so it quickly loses its impact.
The story suffers from a lot of poor choices. The heroes don't seem particularly intelligent. It's a guy and a girl in a house with a gun. Verus a fat wheezy guy and two seemingly hot girls. Shotgun should win out every time. Even after the hero accidentally kills his friend, there's no reason for him to leave the safety of the closet he's in and give up his advantage.
There are other dopey decisions the hero and heroine make. At one point, they're in their car trying to back out of the driveway and escape. The bad guy's truck rams them from behind. In front of them -- a chick in a mask. What does the hero do? Get out of the car and run. How about running down the asshole in front of you? They're not stronger than a truck.
The guy and girl get into and out of the house so many times, it becomes exhausting to watch and suck all the tension out of the proceedings. There's nothing for them to do other than react in shock every time a masked weirdo shows up; so Bertino tries to give the script some business by having an old CB radio out in the garage. As soon as the heroine gets to it, the bad guys smash it. Not very interesting or unique.
And the script doesn't even have a point at the end -- we watch as the good guy and girl are brutally stabbed. If I'm going to watch someone be terrorized for an hour and a half, I at least want them to kick some ass on the bad guys at some point (the major flaw of FUNNY GAMES as well -- although that sucks worse because the heroine gets her revenge and the director "rewinds" the movie and undoes it).
Smart heroes are always more fun to watch. And how do you make them smart? By having the bad guys do intelligent things that back the heroes into a corner, then the heroes figure a way out of it. Having mundane bad guys do boring things leaves our protagonists simply reacting. And that's not satisfying dramatically.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Hell, Boy!
Benicio Del Toro is an extremely talented filmmaker (and a pretty damn good writer too -- the script for PAN'S LABYRINTH was near-brilliant). I like that you can tell one of his films -- whether it's a more personal effort like PAN'S or a big film like BLADE II -- instantly. And he has a gift for making flawed characters, whether they're a young girl with an overactive imagination, a dicky vampire hunter, or a big red demon, sympathetic.
I quite liked HELLBOY. I'd read the comics and enjoyed the first movie. Del Toro did a great job capturing Mignola's difficult tone -- pulp fiction by way of Lovecraft with a dash of humor.
So I'd been looking forward to HELLBOY II, particularly after the kick-ass trailer showing sword-wielding elves and a giant ogre with a metal hand.
SPOILERS UP IN THIS BITCH!
The film delivers on the story and visuals. Hellboy has to stop an evil elf from unleashing an unstoppable mechanical army, all while fighting with his beloved, plus Abe Sapien falls for the elf's twin sister. And there are plenty of interesting action setpieces involving tiny carnivorous faeries, monster fights, and a battle with elf-robots.
Here's where the film goes off the rails a bit.
1) Hellboy's arc. Hellboy and Liz are fighting because he's a slob and doesn't listen to her. Hellboy also wants to "come out" into the public eye. So what does his story become? He outs himself, gets a little famous, people don't like him that much because he's a freak, Liz doesn't like his need to be loved by everyone, the evil elf tells him he should join the elves/freaks, and then he realizes he loves Liz. This is all a giant mess.
If Hellboy's going to be in the public eye, go with it. He becomes famous. He becomes a famewhore and a bit of a dick. That throws his team into jeopardy and eventually he realizes he loves Liz and gives up the public eye for her. In the film, it's a bit of a mish-mosh -- a lot of little bits of things that don't all go together. He never has to make a choice between the public and Liz, and that's unsatisfying the way his character need is established.
2) Hellboy being stabbed with a magic sword/spear/whatever. Hellboy is wounded. He's going to die unless the magical spearhead is taken out. So his team trundles him up to Ireland to go looking for faeries. They can't find a way into the faerie realm. And they happen to bump into a mysterious figure (the Dwarven Metalsmith/whatever) who not only can let them into faerieland, but also knows a guy who can take out the arrowhead. This is doubly convenient for our heroes.
Del Toro tries to gloss over this lazy writing by having the guy who can remove the arrowhead be Death (with a capital "D"). And Death warns Liz that if she saves Hellboy, he'll destroy the world. But that's a false choice. We know she loves him and is going to save him (both because of her nature and because the movie breaks if she says "No, let him die.").
3) Abe's romance. It's nice to see Abe bonding with the elf princess. And we get why they like each other -- they're almost the same person, intuitive palm-reading included. But that's about all we get for their relationship. And once it's established that elf-chick and elf-dude share a sympathetic nervous system, it's pretty clear she's going to have to die so that he can go down too. This was a missed opportunity.
4) The Evil Elf. What's his motivation? This is delivered almost entirely in dialogue/exposition, and it feels a little weak. He hates the humans for trashing the world and forgetting the old gods. Well, show us that -- show us faeries living in ruin, show us more than one shot of E.E. twirling his sword in the subway. SHOW US why he feels this way, then we don't need him to say it. And we'll understand why he kills his own father (and about forty other dudes) in order to wreak havoc on the humans.
So the movie's a lot of fun, and it looks really cool. You get to see a demon fight an ogre and elves and elf-robots. And that's worth the price of admission.
But all the emotion falls a litle flat -- both for Hellboy and Abe (the real emotional center of the movie). And the entire Third Act feels like a bit of a cheat, due to the heroes doing nothing other than bumping into someone who can get them into faerietown and save Hellboy's life.
I quite liked HELLBOY. I'd read the comics and enjoyed the first movie. Del Toro did a great job capturing Mignola's difficult tone -- pulp fiction by way of Lovecraft with a dash of humor.
So I'd been looking forward to HELLBOY II, particularly after the kick-ass trailer showing sword-wielding elves and a giant ogre with a metal hand.
SPOILERS UP IN THIS BITCH!
The film delivers on the story and visuals. Hellboy has to stop an evil elf from unleashing an unstoppable mechanical army, all while fighting with his beloved, plus Abe Sapien falls for the elf's twin sister. And there are plenty of interesting action setpieces involving tiny carnivorous faeries, monster fights, and a battle with elf-robots.
Here's where the film goes off the rails a bit.
1) Hellboy's arc. Hellboy and Liz are fighting because he's a slob and doesn't listen to her. Hellboy also wants to "come out" into the public eye. So what does his story become? He outs himself, gets a little famous, people don't like him that much because he's a freak, Liz doesn't like his need to be loved by everyone, the evil elf tells him he should join the elves/freaks, and then he realizes he loves Liz. This is all a giant mess.
If Hellboy's going to be in the public eye, go with it. He becomes famous. He becomes a famewhore and a bit of a dick. That throws his team into jeopardy and eventually he realizes he loves Liz and gives up the public eye for her. In the film, it's a bit of a mish-mosh -- a lot of little bits of things that don't all go together. He never has to make a choice between the public and Liz, and that's unsatisfying the way his character need is established.
2) Hellboy being stabbed with a magic sword/spear/whatever. Hellboy is wounded. He's going to die unless the magical spearhead is taken out. So his team trundles him up to Ireland to go looking for faeries. They can't find a way into the faerie realm. And they happen to bump into a mysterious figure (the Dwarven Metalsmith/whatever) who not only can let them into faerieland, but also knows a guy who can take out the arrowhead. This is doubly convenient for our heroes.
Del Toro tries to gloss over this lazy writing by having the guy who can remove the arrowhead be Death (with a capital "D"). And Death warns Liz that if she saves Hellboy, he'll destroy the world. But that's a false choice. We know she loves him and is going to save him (both because of her nature and because the movie breaks if she says "No, let him die.").
3) Abe's romance. It's nice to see Abe bonding with the elf princess. And we get why they like each other -- they're almost the same person, intuitive palm-reading included. But that's about all we get for their relationship. And once it's established that elf-chick and elf-dude share a sympathetic nervous system, it's pretty clear she's going to have to die so that he can go down too. This was a missed opportunity.
4) The Evil Elf. What's his motivation? This is delivered almost entirely in dialogue/exposition, and it feels a little weak. He hates the humans for trashing the world and forgetting the old gods. Well, show us that -- show us faeries living in ruin, show us more than one shot of E.E. twirling his sword in the subway. SHOW US why he feels this way, then we don't need him to say it. And we'll understand why he kills his own father (and about forty other dudes) in order to wreak havoc on the humans.
So the movie's a lot of fun, and it looks really cool. You get to see a demon fight an ogre and elves and elf-robots. And that's worth the price of admission.
But all the emotion falls a litle flat -- both for Hellboy and Abe (the real emotional center of the movie). And the entire Third Act feels like a bit of a cheat, due to the heroes doing nothing other than bumping into someone who can get them into faerietown and save Hellboy's life.
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