NO SPOILERS HERE DONT TRIP...
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37285
Moriarty Calls July 2008 The Month Comic Book Movies Come Of Age! THE DARK KNIGHT And HELLBOY II Reviewed!
Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
The only way to truly discuss these films and why they matter is by getting into the marrow of them, the real thematic meat. That means spoilers, but I want to offer you some non-spoiler thoughts before that, so you can get the overview if that’s all you want.
And make no mistake... these films matter. If you’re a fan of film... not just comic-book movies, and not just nerd genre movies, but film of any kind... then you owe it to yourself to see both THE DARK KNIGHT and HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY in the theater, on the best screen you can find. These are big theatrical films, huge in scale, obviously high-tech in terms of film craft, but they’re more than that...
... these films are art. Real art. Undeniable art. Adult films about adult ideas. Richly imagined, beautifully acted by some tremendous ensembles, these are both films that represent the very best of what can happen when the right filmmaker gets hold of the right source material and then makes all the right choices.
I think it’s a shame that people have leapt right to merciless hyperbole in describing the merits of these movies, because it’s going to set audiences up with some unrealistic expectations. I’m reading that DARK KNIGHT is either THE GODFATHER PART II or THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and I’m hearing that HELLBOY II is as great as the original STAR WARS. Huge claims. Pretty much the pinnacle of hyperbole. You say things like that to someone, they’re going to walk into a theater with a chip on their shoulder, needing the film to do more than entertain or provoke. They’re expecting life-altering events at that point.
These are not life-altering events, of course. But they may be genre-altering events. When I wrote my reviews of WANTED and HANCOCK at the start of the weekend, I said that the films disappointed me because I felt like they aimed so low. They just didn’t feel like cohesive movies... instead, they were collections of decent ideas with nothing to hold them together.
With both THE DARK KNIGHT and HELLBOY II, you can tell that the filmmakers are aiming high. They respect the audience and they respect the characters they’re writing, the worlds they’re creating, the moral landscapes they are dealing with. It’s almost disconcerting how little they bow to the conventions of the genre so far with these films. It took me a while to settle into the rhythms of THE DARK KNIGHT because it wasn’t anything I expected it to be. Even having seen the prologue on the bigscreen once before, I didn’t get what tone Nolan was going to hit with this film, and as the film’s first act played out, I realized just how far he was willing to go, and it left me nervous, off-balance, exactly the way a film featuring the Joker should. For the first time ever, I felt like anything could happen whenever he would shamble onscreen, looking like something that just crawled out of a wet grave. I’ve always felt that when the Joker makes a joke, he should be the only one who laughs while everyone else is busy cowering in fear or throwing up. Well, looks like Chris and Jonah Nolan feel the same way, because this is a vile tornado of suffering that sweeps through Gotham, a destructive force in clown makeup, his facial scars a mere hint of just how twisted he is inside. He’s not a villain like we normally see in these movies, and he’s not even the Joker we normally see in Batman stories. He’s the film’s grand metaphor, given voice by an actor who vanishes into the role, and he’s only one of the many merits of THE DARK KNIGHT.
HELLBOY II is a great example of what happens when someone is allowed to make a sequel to their own film, but with a greater support system and more creative freedom. The first HELLBOY is a film I liked quite a bit, but on repeat viewings, its faults are fairly obvious. The main one is Meyers. No matter how well-played he was, he was a studio note with feet. You can practically hear the execs saying, “Well, everyone’s just so weird. You have to have a normal guy as your main character, and let all the freaks just be the supporting cast. That way, people won’t get creeped out.”
Uhhhh... no. This time, the freaks carry the film, and you get the distinct feeling that’s the way it was always meant to be. The result is a film with twice the heart of the already-substantially-heartfelt original, twice the scale, and much more personal stakes for everyone.
I think one of the reasons I’m so smitten with these films is because it’s next to impossible to make a “personal” film on the scale of these movies. You’re talking about an $85 million film for HELLBOY 2, and about $100 million more than that for THE DARK KNIGHT. These are gigantic investments for the releasing companies, and it would not surprise me in the least to see them diluted or dumbed-down. That’s just the nature of this industry, and we’ve come to expect it. So when you see films that truly seem to represent someone’s personal take on such gigantic archetypes, it’s bracing. It’s not just entertainment for a few hours in a theater... it’s an affirmation that there is room for greatness in this business, and sometimes, it’s allowed to happen, or even encouraged to flourish.
With THE DARK KNIGHT, for example, Chris Nolan accomplishes something that both WAR OF THE WORLDS and CLOVERFIELD tried to do, and with more grace and insight. Those films both used 9/11 imagery to resonate with viewers, and in both cases, the imagery is certainly arresting and upsetting, but to what end? Just to remind us? Just to tap into the fear we felt that day? Here, Nolan invokes 9/11, but he pushes past it to also deal with the fear that has stayed with us as a culture since that moment, and also the way it forced the world around us to change. This is the first mainstream movie to fully digest the events of September 11th and to deal with them in a way that starts to sort out who we are now as a result. Heady stuff for a movie about a dude wearing a bat suit who beats the shit out of criminals, but then... isn’t that the point?
I’m not sure why you guys like superhero stories, and I’m not sure what you require when watching one to say that it’s successful. For me, the notion of superpowered people beating each other up isn’t the appeal. It’s simply a way of getting to other ideas. The Greeks used gods as their storytelling archetypes, while we use superheroes instead. It's understandable, since superhero stories allow us to explore shades of gray using characters who are either all good or all bad. When you set up polar extremes like that and then you put them into moral positions where there are no easy answers, it’s a great way to deal with provocative or challenging material in a way that’s more palatable for many audiences. They may not even realize that you’re tackling the subtext... they just absorb the surface level, and everything else works on them in more subtle ways.
The script the Nolans wrote (based on a story they worked out with David Goyer, who told me today “I can’t believe my name is on a movie this good”) uses the last scene of BATMAN BEGINS as a jumping-off point. This movie’s entire thematic subtext was established in that last great moment on the rooftop when Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) handed the playing card to Batman (Christian Bale) and talked to him about the notion of escalation. Here, every scene plays to that idea, and it’s obvious that the Nolans believe that a world of people living by the credo of “an eye for an eye” will quickly go blind. No one escapes this movie without fresh scars. No one gets out without losing something dear to them. If Warner Bros. wanted to title this like the first film, they could have called it BATMAN FAILS, because no matter what he does in this film, he finds himself unable to stem the overflow of shit that threatens his city. He can’t fly around the world to turn back time when something goes wrong. He can’t erase memories or do magic or just magically reset everything and try again. Each time things get worse, all he can do is adjust and try to move on from there, until it finally reaches a point where he isn’t sure there’s any way to adjust anymore. What do you do when every good effort has failed and every good man has been cut down? When chaos and darkness overwhelm you, and even a clear-cut hero can be corrupted, is there any point in even continuing the fight?
I’m not sure kids under 14 or 15 should see this film. For one thing, they won’t understand a lot of it. I don’t think moral ambiguity is one of the things kids look for in their movies. For another thing, the parts they do understand will probably scare the shit out of them. This movie pushed the PG-13 to the breaking point, and I’m not sure how Warner Bros. pulled it off. Harvey Dent’s face post-accident should have pushed them out of the PG-13 all by itself, but it’s saying something when that graphic image is actually one of the least upsetting things in the film. For anyone else, though, I recommend it highly. The action sequences are inventive and grand-scaled, but the character scenes and the quiet headgames are even more engrossing. The score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer is one of the year’s best, with the Joker’s themes coming across like razors being dragged across harpsichord strings. Wally Pfister’s photography is, as expected, stunning, and in particular, his work in IMAX is revelatory.
Oh, yeah... the IMAX. Have I said “Holy shit!” yet? Because if not... holy shit. I’m sure you’ve read that Nolan decided to shoot six major sequences in the film in IMAX. This is the first time a major studio narrative film has lensed sequences in the format. The cameras are a nightmare to move, they hold only three minutes of film, and they’re so noisy it makes it almost impossible to record dialogue live. Even so, I’ll bet we see Nolan work in the format again, because the results are so immersive and startling that they’re worth whatever headaches are involved. The way it works is the IMAX sequences are all projected full frame, so they fill the entire eight-story screen at a ratio of 1.44:1. When the IMAX sequences end, the movie pops into a 2.40:1 letterboxed ratio that’s still pretty damn gigantic. And for regular theaters showing the film, you’ll see everything at 2.40:1, although I’m willing to bet you notice a marked visual difference for certain scenes. It’s not just the size of an IMAX frame... it’s the clarity. It’s the way you get lost in it and no matter where you work, there’s some detail you can notice that might otherwise be lost. It’s the way each motion of the camera pulls you in and makes you feel like you’re moving with it. But more than anything, it’s the way the faces of the actors tower over you, the operatic emotion of this piece cranked up even further by the sheer scale of things. When you look into someone’s eyes, you get a sense of who they are. And in IMAX? It’s like you can see right inside them, which only makes Ledger’s work more disturbing.
Aaron Eckhart deserves some praise as well for the way he brings Harvey Dent to life, and for finding a way to play earnest without becoming overbearing. Dent’s a more difficult role than the Joker in many ways because there aren’t as many big emotions you can play. He’s a decent, upstanding man who believes in doing things right, in prosecuting criminals instead of fighting them on a street level, and little by little, he’s actually making a difference. Eckhart gives the guy an inner life, just enough quirk to make him seem human, so that when the inevitable tragedy (which really is awful as laid out in the film) occurs, it’s not a simple on-off cartoonish lurch into violence for Dent. We feel it. We believe it. Dent’s physical trauma may be exaggerated, but the emotional side of it is pitch-perfect. And his work as Two-Face is just sad and angry. He’s nothing like the Joker. Hell, I’m not even sure I’d call him a villain.
That’s one of the things I love about HELLBOY II as well. Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) is a great movie bad guy because he is absolutely justified in his rage. His reason for doing everything he does is not only understandable, but actually makes real sense. The points he makes are heartbreaking and sad, and I think he speaks directly for Guillermo in places. When he declares war on humanity, it’s not some hollow grab for power, or some desire to rule that spins out of control. Instead, it is a rational response to the genocide of not only his race, but every single magical creature on the planet. It’s a war on the “proud empty” things who are willing to pave over every inch of nature, erasing wonder and horror in favor of parking lots and shopping malls. He’s outraged at the idea of going gently into that good night, and he lashes out. Even when his methods are questionable, I never disliked him. I love it when the “villain” of a film is presented with real empathy, because it puts the viewer in the position of having to think for themselves. Is this a bad guy? Who do you want to see win at the end? Why? Even in serious non-genre drama, antagonists are often given simplistic motives so that the audience knows exactly what they’re supposed to think. Studios will force you to write and rewrite until you’ve cast everything in simple blacks or whites, so HELLBOY II amazes me in the way it manages to keep things so very gray.
At least morally speaking. Visually, HELLBOY II is a feast, one of the summer’s richest and most engrossing experiences. After PAN’S LABYRINTH, it’s like some floodgates deep inside Guillermo opened up, and the result is this deluge of imagination, an amazing array of sights and sounds that weren’t just created to dazzle you. These days, we are almost immune to wonder because of the sheer volume of special effects we are bombarded with every year, but HELLBOY II cuts through that because of the specificity of the world we’re being shown. I think Guillermo really does believe in this world of magic and monsters, these tooth fairies and kitten-eating trolls, these tumor-babies and clockwork soldiers. More than that, I think he prefers this world. By the end of this film, he’s sent a very clear message about who he feels is right and who is wrong, and I think the side he chooses will shock many mainstream viewers, even as it sets the stage for what could be an epic and unusual third chapter in the series.
Both films manage the difficult trick of not only creating a larger world than either BATMAN BEGINS or HELLBOY, but also refining all the things that worked while whittling away the things that don’t. Sequels are a bitch, a necessary evil for this industry, and a skill set that seems to elude many filmmakers completely. Most sequels just tread water, rehashing the original without adding to our understanding of the characters or introducing any new ideas or themes. In HELLBOY II, the removal of Meyers means we now have Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Liz (Selma Blair) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) as the center of the film, and each of them benefits from the way the focus has shifted. Hellboy and Liz make a really touching, interesting couple this time out, and both of them seem stronger, more fully realized. With Doug Jones finally getting the chance to play Abe physically and vocally, the performance congeals into something memorable. He is the heart of the film, the biggest surprise for me. He gets a love story of his own this time, and as a result, there’s a scene in the middle of the film between Hellboy and Abe where the two of them bond over their broken hearts that is one of the best things I’ve seen in any film this year. It’s so human, so recognizable, so identifiable... and yet, we’re watching a giant red demon with a rock hand and a fish-man drunk on cheap Mexican beer, singing one of the cheesiest songs ever recorded. And it works. It works because they have become completely human by that point. The absurdity works for the film, not against it.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37285
Moriarty Calls July 2008 The Month Comic Book Movies Come Of Age! THE DARK KNIGHT And HELLBOY II Reviewed!
Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
The only way to truly discuss these films and why they matter is by getting into the marrow of them, the real thematic meat. That means spoilers, but I want to offer you some non-spoiler thoughts before that, so you can get the overview if that’s all you want.
And make no mistake... these films matter. If you’re a fan of film... not just comic-book movies, and not just nerd genre movies, but film of any kind... then you owe it to yourself to see both THE DARK KNIGHT and HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY in the theater, on the best screen you can find. These are big theatrical films, huge in scale, obviously high-tech in terms of film craft, but they’re more than that...
... these films are art. Real art. Undeniable art. Adult films about adult ideas. Richly imagined, beautifully acted by some tremendous ensembles, these are both films that represent the very best of what can happen when the right filmmaker gets hold of the right source material and then makes all the right choices.
I think it’s a shame that people have leapt right to merciless hyperbole in describing the merits of these movies, because it’s going to set audiences up with some unrealistic expectations. I’m reading that DARK KNIGHT is either THE GODFATHER PART II or THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and I’m hearing that HELLBOY II is as great as the original STAR WARS. Huge claims. Pretty much the pinnacle of hyperbole. You say things like that to someone, they’re going to walk into a theater with a chip on their shoulder, needing the film to do more than entertain or provoke. They’re expecting life-altering events at that point.
These are not life-altering events, of course. But they may be genre-altering events. When I wrote my reviews of WANTED and HANCOCK at the start of the weekend, I said that the films disappointed me because I felt like they aimed so low. They just didn’t feel like cohesive movies... instead, they were collections of decent ideas with nothing to hold them together.
With both THE DARK KNIGHT and HELLBOY II, you can tell that the filmmakers are aiming high. They respect the audience and they respect the characters they’re writing, the worlds they’re creating, the moral landscapes they are dealing with. It’s almost disconcerting how little they bow to the conventions of the genre so far with these films. It took me a while to settle into the rhythms of THE DARK KNIGHT because it wasn’t anything I expected it to be. Even having seen the prologue on the bigscreen once before, I didn’t get what tone Nolan was going to hit with this film, and as the film’s first act played out, I realized just how far he was willing to go, and it left me nervous, off-balance, exactly the way a film featuring the Joker should. For the first time ever, I felt like anything could happen whenever he would shamble onscreen, looking like something that just crawled out of a wet grave. I’ve always felt that when the Joker makes a joke, he should be the only one who laughs while everyone else is busy cowering in fear or throwing up. Well, looks like Chris and Jonah Nolan feel the same way, because this is a vile tornado of suffering that sweeps through Gotham, a destructive force in clown makeup, his facial scars a mere hint of just how twisted he is inside. He’s not a villain like we normally see in these movies, and he’s not even the Joker we normally see in Batman stories. He’s the film’s grand metaphor, given voice by an actor who vanishes into the role, and he’s only one of the many merits of THE DARK KNIGHT.
HELLBOY II is a great example of what happens when someone is allowed to make a sequel to their own film, but with a greater support system and more creative freedom. The first HELLBOY is a film I liked quite a bit, but on repeat viewings, its faults are fairly obvious. The main one is Meyers. No matter how well-played he was, he was a studio note with feet. You can practically hear the execs saying, “Well, everyone’s just so weird. You have to have a normal guy as your main character, and let all the freaks just be the supporting cast. That way, people won’t get creeped out.”
Uhhhh... no. This time, the freaks carry the film, and you get the distinct feeling that’s the way it was always meant to be. The result is a film with twice the heart of the already-substantially-heartfelt original, twice the scale, and much more personal stakes for everyone.
I think one of the reasons I’m so smitten with these films is because it’s next to impossible to make a “personal” film on the scale of these movies. You’re talking about an $85 million film for HELLBOY 2, and about $100 million more than that for THE DARK KNIGHT. These are gigantic investments for the releasing companies, and it would not surprise me in the least to see them diluted or dumbed-down. That’s just the nature of this industry, and we’ve come to expect it. So when you see films that truly seem to represent someone’s personal take on such gigantic archetypes, it’s bracing. It’s not just entertainment for a few hours in a theater... it’s an affirmation that there is room for greatness in this business, and sometimes, it’s allowed to happen, or even encouraged to flourish.
With THE DARK KNIGHT, for example, Chris Nolan accomplishes something that both WAR OF THE WORLDS and CLOVERFIELD tried to do, and with more grace and insight. Those films both used 9/11 imagery to resonate with viewers, and in both cases, the imagery is certainly arresting and upsetting, but to what end? Just to remind us? Just to tap into the fear we felt that day? Here, Nolan invokes 9/11, but he pushes past it to also deal with the fear that has stayed with us as a culture since that moment, and also the way it forced the world around us to change. This is the first mainstream movie to fully digest the events of September 11th and to deal with them in a way that starts to sort out who we are now as a result. Heady stuff for a movie about a dude wearing a bat suit who beats the shit out of criminals, but then... isn’t that the point?
I’m not sure why you guys like superhero stories, and I’m not sure what you require when watching one to say that it’s successful. For me, the notion of superpowered people beating each other up isn’t the appeal. It’s simply a way of getting to other ideas. The Greeks used gods as their storytelling archetypes, while we use superheroes instead. It's understandable, since superhero stories allow us to explore shades of gray using characters who are either all good or all bad. When you set up polar extremes like that and then you put them into moral positions where there are no easy answers, it’s a great way to deal with provocative or challenging material in a way that’s more palatable for many audiences. They may not even realize that you’re tackling the subtext... they just absorb the surface level, and everything else works on them in more subtle ways.
The script the Nolans wrote (based on a story they worked out with David Goyer, who told me today “I can’t believe my name is on a movie this good”) uses the last scene of BATMAN BEGINS as a jumping-off point. This movie’s entire thematic subtext was established in that last great moment on the rooftop when Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) handed the playing card to Batman (Christian Bale) and talked to him about the notion of escalation. Here, every scene plays to that idea, and it’s obvious that the Nolans believe that a world of people living by the credo of “an eye for an eye” will quickly go blind. No one escapes this movie without fresh scars. No one gets out without losing something dear to them. If Warner Bros. wanted to title this like the first film, they could have called it BATMAN FAILS, because no matter what he does in this film, he finds himself unable to stem the overflow of shit that threatens his city. He can’t fly around the world to turn back time when something goes wrong. He can’t erase memories or do magic or just magically reset everything and try again. Each time things get worse, all he can do is adjust and try to move on from there, until it finally reaches a point where he isn’t sure there’s any way to adjust anymore. What do you do when every good effort has failed and every good man has been cut down? When chaos and darkness overwhelm you, and even a clear-cut hero can be corrupted, is there any point in even continuing the fight?
I’m not sure kids under 14 or 15 should see this film. For one thing, they won’t understand a lot of it. I don’t think moral ambiguity is one of the things kids look for in their movies. For another thing, the parts they do understand will probably scare the shit out of them. This movie pushed the PG-13 to the breaking point, and I’m not sure how Warner Bros. pulled it off. Harvey Dent’s face post-accident should have pushed them out of the PG-13 all by itself, but it’s saying something when that graphic image is actually one of the least upsetting things in the film. For anyone else, though, I recommend it highly. The action sequences are inventive and grand-scaled, but the character scenes and the quiet headgames are even more engrossing. The score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer is one of the year’s best, with the Joker’s themes coming across like razors being dragged across harpsichord strings. Wally Pfister’s photography is, as expected, stunning, and in particular, his work in IMAX is revelatory.
Oh, yeah... the IMAX. Have I said “Holy shit!” yet? Because if not... holy shit. I’m sure you’ve read that Nolan decided to shoot six major sequences in the film in IMAX. This is the first time a major studio narrative film has lensed sequences in the format. The cameras are a nightmare to move, they hold only three minutes of film, and they’re so noisy it makes it almost impossible to record dialogue live. Even so, I’ll bet we see Nolan work in the format again, because the results are so immersive and startling that they’re worth whatever headaches are involved. The way it works is the IMAX sequences are all projected full frame, so they fill the entire eight-story screen at a ratio of 1.44:1. When the IMAX sequences end, the movie pops into a 2.40:1 letterboxed ratio that’s still pretty damn gigantic. And for regular theaters showing the film, you’ll see everything at 2.40:1, although I’m willing to bet you notice a marked visual difference for certain scenes. It’s not just the size of an IMAX frame... it’s the clarity. It’s the way you get lost in it and no matter where you work, there’s some detail you can notice that might otherwise be lost. It’s the way each motion of the camera pulls you in and makes you feel like you’re moving with it. But more than anything, it’s the way the faces of the actors tower over you, the operatic emotion of this piece cranked up even further by the sheer scale of things. When you look into someone’s eyes, you get a sense of who they are. And in IMAX? It’s like you can see right inside them, which only makes Ledger’s work more disturbing.
Aaron Eckhart deserves some praise as well for the way he brings Harvey Dent to life, and for finding a way to play earnest without becoming overbearing. Dent’s a more difficult role than the Joker in many ways because there aren’t as many big emotions you can play. He’s a decent, upstanding man who believes in doing things right, in prosecuting criminals instead of fighting them on a street level, and little by little, he’s actually making a difference. Eckhart gives the guy an inner life, just enough quirk to make him seem human, so that when the inevitable tragedy (which really is awful as laid out in the film) occurs, it’s not a simple on-off cartoonish lurch into violence for Dent. We feel it. We believe it. Dent’s physical trauma may be exaggerated, but the emotional side of it is pitch-perfect. And his work as Two-Face is just sad and angry. He’s nothing like the Joker. Hell, I’m not even sure I’d call him a villain.
That’s one of the things I love about HELLBOY II as well. Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) is a great movie bad guy because he is absolutely justified in his rage. His reason for doing everything he does is not only understandable, but actually makes real sense. The points he makes are heartbreaking and sad, and I think he speaks directly for Guillermo in places. When he declares war on humanity, it’s not some hollow grab for power, or some desire to rule that spins out of control. Instead, it is a rational response to the genocide of not only his race, but every single magical creature on the planet. It’s a war on the “proud empty” things who are willing to pave over every inch of nature, erasing wonder and horror in favor of parking lots and shopping malls. He’s outraged at the idea of going gently into that good night, and he lashes out. Even when his methods are questionable, I never disliked him. I love it when the “villain” of a film is presented with real empathy, because it puts the viewer in the position of having to think for themselves. Is this a bad guy? Who do you want to see win at the end? Why? Even in serious non-genre drama, antagonists are often given simplistic motives so that the audience knows exactly what they’re supposed to think. Studios will force you to write and rewrite until you’ve cast everything in simple blacks or whites, so HELLBOY II amazes me in the way it manages to keep things so very gray.
At least morally speaking. Visually, HELLBOY II is a feast, one of the summer’s richest and most engrossing experiences. After PAN’S LABYRINTH, it’s like some floodgates deep inside Guillermo opened up, and the result is this deluge of imagination, an amazing array of sights and sounds that weren’t just created to dazzle you. These days, we are almost immune to wonder because of the sheer volume of special effects we are bombarded with every year, but HELLBOY II cuts through that because of the specificity of the world we’re being shown. I think Guillermo really does believe in this world of magic and monsters, these tooth fairies and kitten-eating trolls, these tumor-babies and clockwork soldiers. More than that, I think he prefers this world. By the end of this film, he’s sent a very clear message about who he feels is right and who is wrong, and I think the side he chooses will shock many mainstream viewers, even as it sets the stage for what could be an epic and unusual third chapter in the series.
Both films manage the difficult trick of not only creating a larger world than either BATMAN BEGINS or HELLBOY, but also refining all the things that worked while whittling away the things that don’t. Sequels are a bitch, a necessary evil for this industry, and a skill set that seems to elude many filmmakers completely. Most sequels just tread water, rehashing the original without adding to our understanding of the characters or introducing any new ideas or themes. In HELLBOY II, the removal of Meyers means we now have Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Liz (Selma Blair) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) as the center of the film, and each of them benefits from the way the focus has shifted. Hellboy and Liz make a really touching, interesting couple this time out, and both of them seem stronger, more fully realized. With Doug Jones finally getting the chance to play Abe physically and vocally, the performance congeals into something memorable. He is the heart of the film, the biggest surprise for me. He gets a love story of his own this time, and as a result, there’s a scene in the middle of the film between Hellboy and Abe where the two of them bond over their broken hearts that is one of the best things I’ve seen in any film this year. It’s so human, so recognizable, so identifiable... and yet, we’re watching a giant red demon with a rock hand and a fish-man drunk on cheap Mexican beer, singing one of the cheesiest songs ever recorded. And it works. It works because they have become completely human by that point. The absurdity works for the film, not against it.
