Cyrus Presents Jason's Review of "Hellboy II: The Golden Army - The 3 Disc Special Edition"

Hey, gorramit, where the hell did I put that Hellboy 2 DVD? And why is the "Best of Martin Lawrence" 10 DVD box set still lying here I gave to Jason to review for the site? ...

jaaaaaaaaSSSSOOOOOOONNNNNNN!!!!

Thank you, Cyrus.

There.

It's good to be able to say that. It's rare that he gives me something to review that doesn't make me feel like I'm living through the heroin withdrawal scene in 'Trainspotting'. Sometimes, he slips me a movie that makes me feel like I'm dipping into the filthiest toilet in Scotland. On the rarest of occasions, he gives me a present - a film packed with all of the good things drugs can do for society. In deference to the wisdom of the late, great Bill Hicks, drugs have acted as the midwife to many, many glorious things, like latter-day Beatles albums, Alice in Wonderland, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Now we can add Hellboy 2 to that list.

For Hellboy 2, I'm convinced that director Guillermo Del Toro was given a sack of LSD-soaked Blow-Pops and a 150 million dollars. This is an epic of unchecked, weapons-grade weirdness. He's given carte blanche to craft a gruesome fairy tale that surpasses the first in every way. I'll easily throw this out there as one of the most visually stunning movies ever. Feel free to turn the sound off. It won't matter all that much, unfortunately. The eye candy in this is potent enough to blow a few fuses in your brain. There's a scene set in an underground troll market that could easily go a few rounds with the infamous Mos Eisley cantina scene. It's that striking. The character and set designs are inspired and reflect an obsessive love and attention to detail that few films outside of the Lord of the Rings series have expressed. This is world creation from the ground up. But they don't just stop at sight seeing and parading around a menagerie of freaks. No, you also get to see them fight. These jaw-droppingly gorgeous set-pieces are cage matches for explosive, stunningly choreographed brawls. The final battle between the BPRD and the Golden Army is worth the price of admission alone.

"Jason," I can hear you saying, "that's great and all, but it sounds like there's a 'But...' coming." There is indeed. Hellboy 2 isn't a tail-to-horns success. As the film tries to juggle grim portents of apocalypse with low brow goofiness, it comes precariously close to dropping the ball. There's not a whole lot beneath the surface here. The characters are likable enough, but when they fail, they do it gloriously. The opening sequence alone, featuring an adolescent Hellboy, likely lost a good portion of the audience that would have enjoyed the rest of it. This buck-toothed goblin is testament that not all of the visual effects are a soaring success. And while the design of Krauss is a marvel of steampunk design, Seth MacFarlane's voice (yes, that Seth MacFarlane) for the character is the most ridiculous German stereotype since Hogan's Heroes. This, coupled with some truly absurd character choices, keep the film from nabbing the brass ring. The final scene will leave anyone puzzled, wondering what cause-and-effect chain of events they missed.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

They really should call this the 3 Disc Fetish Edition (even if the third disc is a digital copy, which is cheating). It's so robust that it must have been cobbled together by a completely OCD fiend. It really illustrates how much artistry and passion was poured into the project. If it were ink and paper, it would make one hell of a coffee table book.

Aside from a director's commentary by the always-entertaining Del Toro, there are several behind the scenes set visits that really give you a feel for A-Z filmmaking. No stone is left unturned. It's far more satisfying than the glad-handing, blowjobs-for-everyone tripe that passes for 'making of' featurettes on most DVDs.

Even if you only bought the single disc edition, I urge you to go out of your way to see Del Toro's tour of the troll market. It's hands down the most astounding set I've ever seen. If you've watched the film and liked that segment, it's only a taste of the whole thing. I can't express how staggering it is. There's also an assortment of deleted scenes that, like many films, isn't so much new material as it is a collection of fat trimmed from existing sequences. There's a simplistically animated comic that serves as an epilogue to the first film and several other 'scene specific' featurettes. All in all, it provides several more hours of content, a post mortem of a truly colossal filmmaking endeavor. If there's an extra-special edition on the way, I have no idea what else they'd include.

Hellboy 2 is the product of drugs unavailable to most men. The hallucinogens that power this have been imported from Krypton. Del Toro has strayed from the source material, but only in a way canon queens would worry about. It's given him the room to create a new pantheon of gods and monsters. Besides, how often do you get to see a demon and a fish man get drunk and sing along to Barry Manilow?

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