Hellboy Kicks Ass on DVD

By / / Home Video
  • Title: Hellboy II: The Golden Army
  • IMDb: link

“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wet your pants.”
—Ron Perlman describes Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Although I enjoyed the first Hellboy I wasn’t blown away by it.  This time however Guillermo del Toro gets it just right.  With more monsters, more special effects, a stronger story, and more humor, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is one of the few sequels which outshines the original.

Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones (this time voicing his character), and Jeffrey Tambor all return as agents of the B.P.R.D. This time they’re out to stop a mad elven Prince (Luke Goss) who plans to awaken an unstoppable robot army to wage his war against humanity.

There are several new characters introduced who stand out most notably the ectoplasmic scientific expert Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane), Abe’s love interest Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) and the intimidating Mr. Wink (Brian Steele).

The film amps up everything for the sequel including an array of mind-bending costumes, creatures, and special effects.  And even more importantly it adds to the funny with several fun scenes, my favorite being Hellboy and Abe’s shared drunken Barry Manilow moment.  Aside from being beautiful to look at this film is just plain fun to watch.

And I’ve got to stop and mention Perlman’s performance which is outstanding and runs the gamut from drama to action to funny, funny moments.  Hellboy himself is the best special effect in the film.  I know Heath Ledger is getting a ton of press, but the Joker isn’t necessarily the best performance in a comic book film this year.

I enjoyed this film on DVD (not to mention all the special features) even more than in theaters.  If you missed this one (and judging by the box office numbers many of you did) I would definitely encourage you to pick it up on DVD or Blu-ray.  The single-disc edition is full of good extras (kudos to Universal for not simply releasing a bare bones single-disc version without any extras), but the Special Edition is packed with hours and hours of fun which shouldn’t be missed by anyone who loves the character or the comic book and fantasy genres.  Should you buy Hellboy 2: The Golden Army?  Hell yeah!  And if you pick up the Blu-ray let me know how that comic book builder works out.

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