[Just your average movie goer]

This is officially a Lord of the Rings thread.

Interesting point there. Although, sometimes I'd say Peter Jackson forgets who people are as well - for instance, Gandalf in Return of the King becomes an old man who's just clinging to desperate hope, whereas in the book, it's revealed that he had things well in hand. Peter Jackson also missed the fact that Gandalf was deliberately holding himself back in order to allow the human characters to learn how to take care of themselves without his help.

Also, thinking over it more, I'd say that there should have been a sense of urgency in The Two Towers and Return of the King. Things should have been moving quickly, but they stopped so often - especially in Rohan. The characters there were so laid back. What the hell were they doing sitting around when the beacons were lit? They should have already been on their way to Gondor at that point. Also, the beacons should have been lit much earlier as well. Gandalf and Pippin were supposed to see them as they were riding into Gondor. Also, they weren't for the Rohirrim. The Rohirrim should have been on their way regardless. The beacons were for the people in other areas of Gondor, like Prince Imrahil (who really should have been in the movie). However, for reasons that elude me, the filmmakers decided to bring the pace to a halt as often as they could and so what could have been a rollercoaster ride was more akin to a rollercoaster queue.


Different subject - I haven't seen The Rocketeer but it sounds like I should.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 08 May 2011 - 09:06 PM

[Zatoichi]

Going to have to rewatch The Neverending Story at some point. I think I may have changed my mind on that one as well.

Never got to see Labyrinth, I'll have to some day.

Oh definitely check out The Rocketeer. There's probably a few things up with it. I haven't seen it in ages, but I remember it being a pretty fun movie.

Indian in the Cupboard, I'll have to see it again before writing it off, but I can only think of one really good thing off the top of my head. I want that cupboard. Honestly, with its magical possibilities, the only true limitations are its size. Since it can simply will nonexistant technologies into existance even when they're only made out of solid plastic, just like the Vader's lightsaber ... yeah. Talk about having an item that could potentially allow you to posses enough future tech do almost limitless things.

[Gobbler]

Zatoichi, on 24 May 2011 - 03:39 AM, said:

Indian in the Cupboard

Yeah I know I'm shallow, but I never managed to get over the face of that kid who played Omri... the movie was bad enough, but that kid, damn. Just damn.

[Just your average movie goer]

I've never seen this Indian in the Cupboard but if it's one of those stories about the imagination that doesn't actually display any imagination, then it can't be good. I've seen a number of movies like that - "Wow. The things we could do in this imaginary world... the possibilities are endless... um, does anyone have a deck of cards?" Come to think of it, The Neverending Story's like that. Also, it's an example of false-advertising. It ends before the two hour mark is up. Neverending, eh?

Segue

This reminds me. No, Zatoichi! You don't have to check out that movie again. Let it just lie in your memories. I know you're curious to see if it really doesn't hold up any more but you'll thank me later.

[Zatoichi]

Just your average movie goer, on 24 May 2011 - 08:31 AM, said:

This reminds me. No, Zatoichi! You don't have to check out that movie again. Let it just lie in your memories. I know you're curious to see if it really doesn't hold up any more but you'll thank me later.

Its more like I'm filled with morbid curiosity and heapings of self-loathing. Plus I'm in a complaining mood at the moment, with nothing to complain about. It'll let me spend my energies somewhere.

First off, what is up with the opening music. Next, the scene where he gets chased by the bullies. Foolish child, you've been living in the city. You should know at least a thing or two if you've been allowed to walk to school this whole time. Stay in public places and call for help. You were near with street with plenty of adults around who might've intervened. So what move do you make? You ran down an alley with no other people there ... no wonder they toss you in a dumpster. Apparently he's read all these books about good people standing up for themselves, but he never does.

Freaking steals the old guys book. I know its what the old guy was kinda going for anyway, but our "hero" isn't doing very well. At ten years old he's already a bum and a thief. Also steals a key to the attic/storage space that is most likely off limits.

the rockbiter looked like he ripped something off his own crotch.

Atreiuiuieue - a tribe's best warrior is a an 11 year old? And the only thing they can give him is this advice from the old man. Go alone and don't take any weapons. You don't even question the guy. An old guy who moments ago was (rightly) giving you crap because you are still a child. Dude, Luke Skywalker had been training under Yoda for a while, and all he had to do was go in a cave. He still said f-that and took his weapons. Oh, here's a medallion. It means you speak for the emperess. It will totally (not) keep you safe. Personally, I'd at least ask for some rope, other tools, food, water, you know stuff to help stay alive. Since no hunting is going to get done because I was an idiot who gave up my weapons (I would so not give them up). And apparently they have no freaking clue what they're looking for. A cure ... just a cure, no special medicine item, no name, no location, no direction, just ride off into the sunset.

Desert of Broken Hope, Swamps of Sadness ... really, really? And then Artex dies. Didn't know horses could get sad like that. Honestly, less than 30 minutes into this, I really don't have much of an emotional attachment to the horse. I don't remember it dying so soon. Also, how does Ateyu not get pulled under? I'm pretty sure he just became waaaay sadder than the horse.

Shell mountain my butt, its hardly even a hill. Atreyu "All this mud, if only I was fighting a Predator" How the fudge does the ancient one know anything if she hasn't talked to anyone in a 1000 years? She appaerently still manages to keep current on world news. And who screams while reading a book, honestly?

Falcor starts out really freakin creepy "I like children". the way he says it, shudder.

The old couple from The Princess Bride?

All right, for one, always listen to the old guy telling you how to defeat all of these obstacles. Don't just listen to the 1st one and take off. Next, if all it takes to beat the 1st gate is to just sprint past the two death beam sphinxes, why hasn't anyone every even tried that before? And, who the hell shouts at a book? Yeah its a movie, he's a kid, and its a kids movie ... but its starting to get to where i want to see his skull bashed in. Also, why go through the gates? He's got a flying dog-dragon thing. Now if it was in a cave, fine.

And then the little piece of crap trashes the book. what a litlle bastard. for all of his reading he doesn't seem to have much respect for books

okay, I guess there was just 2 challenges. And the second one was merely walking through a mirror ... not that dangerous

G'mork. not the smartest of bad guys. just reveled his master's plan. Kind of a silly plan. Why would a lackey follow that if he dies too?

And then the Emperess annihilates (sp) the 4th wall. Also, she looks alright for someone who was dying.

So, a few things. Bastion's dad has probably called the cops by now. Seeing as how the kid never made it to class on time and at the movie it is the next day, so he never went home at night. Fantasia, while there were some realy nice backdrops and quarky creatures, was supposed to be composed of the dreams of humankind. I should think that it would be faaaaar more imaginative. There isn't an encounter with the main villain, and we never even find out who he was. We just find out that there was someone doing something to control the world. I've seen where the true or master villain gets held back for now, but I just don't think it was handled well here.

[Just your average movie goer]

Also, it's a textbook example of a movie about imagination that doesn't really display any. Drab forest. Drab palace. Many inhabitants of Fantasia gather in the tower... many... you know, maybe even ten! Drab montage. Tiny sets.

I see you went ahead and revisited it, Zatoichi, but I understand your motives. However, it paid off. I enjoyed your little rundown of the various things that are wrong with this movie. I realise I had left off a few things myself. Bastion really is a pretty uninspiring hero. He's not too bright. He's a bit of a thief - and yes! Who screams when they're reading a book? The other thing that's lame is that when it comes to the part where he learns the Empress needs a new name and then characters in the book start saying that they need the reader to give her one, why doesn't he just give it a try? He doesn't have to shout out the window. He could just murmur it quietly. It's not as though anyone could hear him - and it certainly wouldn't be any more embarrassing than anything else he had done by this point in the movie. Also, for all he knows, it could just be part of the spirit of the book - like the original Peter Pan where the actors ask the audience to clap to save Tinkerbell. What a killjoy Bastion is. You can just imagine him at a Peter Pan performance. The other children would be clapping and he'd have his arms folded. Some kid would try to encourage him to join in and then he'd complain that it's not real.

Mind you though, his father's rather joyless too. Why does the guy care if Bastion is interested in make-believe things? He's a kid! Maybe his father wanted him to be like Doogie Howser or something.

Oh, I'd forgotten about Atreyu's no-weapon rule. Hey - how come he was able to stab G'mork then? I'm picking up on some inconsistency here. Damn movie.

And G'mork - yeah, great plan:
"So, what's in this for you, G'mork?"
(pause) "You know, I never stopped to think about that."

With the empress breaking the fourth wall, I suppose the movie was trying to say something clever and suggest that in many ways, we're all like Bastion, refusing to embrace our imaginations and so the beauty of imagination is drying up. Nice message and all - except, I can't really see any evidence for its necessity. People are creating stories all the time and people, children and adults alike, love stories. So it's a message that's not really needed. Also, it comes from a movie that's a bit of an imaginative desert, metaphorically speaking, rather than a imaginative forest.

Oh - and that part with Bastion and the bullies at the end? Cracked.com made a nice little epilogue to the movie dealing with that.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 26 May 2011 - 04:05 AM

[Zatoichi]

And I think its a movie that if you took the general idea and actually did a really good job with it, its something that could have staying power. I mean, it seems to have been remembered well enough as it stands.

I think that perhaps the idea is to show Bastion that even as he is, he does have the ability to affect change. More of a "and the moral of the story is" kind of deal. Because he is pretty worthless as a hero. He doesn't even take care of the bullies, Falcor does. He doesn't stand up to them on his own or appeal to some one else's sense of justice to help him put a stop to their bullying. He finds an outside source to essentially take his revenge on them. You're right, the little snot wouldn't clap, even though he's supposed to be full of imagination. You know with unicorns and stuff.

A little strong for a kids movie, but what if the mom had committed suicide or had simply left them? Might give certain things that take place have a greater impact. Could help to explain character actions.

Oh, Atreyu picks up a rather large, sharp piece of stonework. When G'mork lunges at him, he pretty much impales himself on it. For G'mork, I would guess that he was actually something imagined by the villain, and so knew his master's plan and was compelled to follow his orders. Because, how would the villain plan to use a destroyed Fantasia if he was in it? "Yes, the whole of earth will become more pliable and then I will rule! Ah the nothing, my pet, come to" *death*. But I won't actually give them this much, because I don't think it was something that they actually thought about.

I get the impression that the plot of the story was really more confined to Bastion not using his imagination rather than the whole world. Which is a bit stupid because he had been rather intensely using his imagination this whole time. But the idea of the entire world actually losing their imagination is far dumber. Dumb because that just pretty much wouldn't happen.

Oh, and for a movie about imagination, even the characters seem to lack it. For Atreyu, its when the old guy gives him his "quest". He takes away his weapons, doesn't provide any real aide or provisions, and just givens him a medallion. He also doesn't know where Atreyu should go or what this cure actually is. And yet Atreyu never even questions him. "Hey, if you know so much about the rules of this quest, why don't you know about any of the important information that might make it so I'm actually able to complete it?" The old guy could've at least said, "Ah tis a holy quest ... no bloodshed ... meant to test the limits of the hero ... blah blah blah." But no, we get blind acceptance. And Falcor, Atreyu asks him how they might solve things and his only answer is "Ummm, I'm a luck dragon. I don't do things like thinking about how to solve a problem. I just depend on getting lucky and having my problems solve themselves after I fly around for a long time."

That was an awesome epilogue, a very good laugh.

This post has been edited by Zatoichi: 26 May 2011 - 06:16 AM

[Just your average movie goer]

Glad you like it. I liked the part about Falkor being fueled by human fear. Brilliant!

Actually, I'm glad you mentioned Falkor's rubbish about luck as well. I remember that as a kid, I thought of him as a reassuring character in the story - a kind of pillar of strength if you will - supporting Atreyu in his quest. However, on my last viewing, I thought there's not much reassuring about a character who's motto for every situation is to just hope that their luck prevails.

"How will find the borders of Fantasia?"
"With luck! Ha ha ha! Ho ho!"
(nervous chuckle) "A-ha. Ha. He. Man, we're screwed."

Quote

A little strong for a kids movie

Well, the movie already has one of the most traumatizing scenes a young viewer can come across. You must be made of sterner stuff than I am because I couldn't handle that scene again.

If I remember correctly, in the book, G'mork has handled better. He was an agent who could cross between the borders of Fantasia and the real world - and it was implied that in the real world, he had a human form, which was kind of cool. However, the movie didn't really stick to the book much. Actually, the author Michael Ende hated the movie apparently. He wanted them to change the name and everything.

I will say that the first half of the book, which the movie's based off, is interesting and definitely better than the movie. However, it then becomes rather weird. Bastion goes straight into Fantasia after he saves it and so he's in there when he's rebuilding it - and then the story takes on the feel of some type of pilgrimage with Bastion getting lost inside this imaginary world of his and eventually having to find his way back to the real one. No, that basic premise doesn't sound weird in and of itself - but the events along the way have a disjointed feel to them and the story really feels directionless pretty quickly. Actually, at times, it really does feel like it's a neverending tale.

However, it is interesting for those who have seen the original movie. You'll also recognise sections that the second movie adapted when you're reading through the second half of the book. Now, there's a movie you don't want to revisit!


All right, time for another movie I've changed my mind about... Goldeneye.

How I remember it: A rollicking roller coaster of an adventure, with non-stop thrills and action aplenty. With lively characters in every corner and lots of wit and fun.

How it actually is:

Goldeneye is a flat, dated movie. It has a lifeless quality to it and action aplenty? It's slow. And I'm not talking about the good kind of slow where you get a gradual build up to a brilliant pay off. No, I'm talking about plodding slow. The first half drags. It takes far too long to set up. That silly little car race with the Nintendo music could have been left off - and knocking over cyclists while they're peddling up a mountain and knocking them over for laughs? Clearly, Martin Campbell's never ridden a bike before, the jerk, because a guy who can ride a bike up a mountain is cooler than James Bond could ever be.

Sorry, got derailed there. Yeah, that first half. The movie wasted too much time with Bond and Xenia Onnatop in the casino (especially as Xenia was a baddie rather than a love interest). It wasted too much time with that sequence where the Goldeneye is stolen. It wasted too much time in the MI6 office. It wasted too much time being politically correct and apologetic for the misogyny of the series in the past. There was no need for any of that. By all means, it should have been more PC, but it didn't need to wave its political correctness in our face every few minutes. It almost seemed as self-conscious as On Her Majesty's Secret Service - and that's not a good thing. It also wasted lots of time in Q-branch, especially seeing how none of the gadgets apart from the pen really get a showing in the movie. No, not even the belt with the grappling hook. I know Bond used it but he asked Q if it'd support additional weight and Q had told him that it was only tested for one. I'm sorry, but with that set-up, Bond really should have tried swinging to safety on it with the girl under his arm. As for the car... complete waste. You never even see the silly missiles behind the headlights. Anyway, by the time Bond is in St. Petersburg, the movie's nearly half over.

I should also mention that the opening sequence is nowhere as good as anyone will remember it. For starters, the continuity stinks. Bond bungee jumps in the spring or summer and when he comes out of the base, it's in the middle of winter. Also, as for the base itself, there is no reconciling the two exteriors. One's something at the base of a dam. The other's the worst miniature effect ever in the history of film and it's sitting on a clifftop.

Also, remember Boris? He's not as funny as you probably remember him as being. Also, he tries to hit Natalia at the end of the movie and the scene is so uncomfortably close to domestic violence that it's hard to enjoy any of his quips.

Remember how much fun Robbie Coltrane was in the movie? Yeah, he was great fun - except he was only in it for about five minutes.

Remember how sexy Xenia Onnatop was and how fun all her scenes with Bond were? Try exchanging 'sexy' with 'embarrassing to watch' and you'll be closer to the mark.

Remember how cool it was when Alec Trevelyan came back and all the great scenes he and Bond shared? Yeah, I enjoyed all five minutes of their actual scenes too. The ten minutes of "Omph!", "Grh!", "Grunt!", "Arg!", "Aardvark!" and "Grrgh!" between them at the end was not in any way (1) interesting, (2)enjoyable or (3)entertaining. Also, the finale dragged. I really have no time these days for overly long finales. No, this wasn't as bad as Inception's "hey, let's throw in a snow dream level just to pad out the running time!" but it was still a drag.

Other things that bothered me. The editing is the worst editing I have ever seen in a movie ever (and I've seen that part in The Dark Knight where Harvey and Rachel just suddenly show up in those warehouses). No singular example of editing could be any worse than the train-tank sequence. The train is approaching the tank at high speed. We see it from behind. They're going to collide in a second. We cut to a front view of the train. It seems to have gone backwards by two hundred metres and is now moving more slowly. We cut to Bond jumping out of the tank. Shot of train shows that there's no need for him to rush. He rushes anyway however - good thing too because the train now appears as though it's right on top of the tank. However, it's not. Bond is just as outside the tunnel. Shot of Bond watching the train go past. He turns his head to follow it. The camera then switches to Bond's point of view. However, according to the camera, Bond is now three hundred metres away from the tunnel's entrance. The train has jumped back along the tracks too. It goes in and finally crashes. Hollywood executives take notice and warn everyone in the business to never use Martin Campbell or his editor again. Unfortunately, the Bond producers never realise their mistake and hire Campbell again for Casino Royale (which also looks dated now and all thanks to this lame excuse of a director).

Then there's the score. Dreadful. Dull. Uninspired. It has this awful early 90s synth sound, it throws in stupid (and completely random) throbbing bass sounds and silly Russian choir samples or something like that. It's ugly and it's a mess. Also, you never once hear the Bond theme played out properly. Nor is Tina Turner's opening number incorporated into the score. I mentioned this score before in my Quantum of Solace thread actually. Dreadful, dreary, uninteresting music and it lessens the joy of watching the movie considerably.

And let's not forget the lame romantic subplot that's forced into it, along with uninteresting forced dialogue. "How can you act like this?" Natalia asks Bond. "How can you be so cold?" Why should she care? She barely knows the guy and what she does know is that he's a government agent whose line of work involves gunfights and blowing things up. If they wanted to ditch anything from the old movies to make the new movies hold up better, then they should have dropped that nonsense about women just falling for Bond because they had one scene together.

"Well. That train just blew up."
"I've just fallen head over heels for you, Bond."
"Yeah, I know. This always happens."

Yeah, this is not a great movie - especially as it was supposed to revitalise the franchise. It was supposed to be a reinvention actually, so it's doubly abysmal. And also, for the first post-Cold War Bond, it had a heavy focus on Bond dealing with Russians. The much less well-received and regarded Tomorrow Never Dies does a far better job of bringing the franchise into the modern world. And it's a much faster paced film... with an awesome soundtrack too. It's the roller coaster ride. Goldeneye is the roller coaster queue.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 26 May 2011 - 07:33 AM

[Zatoichi]

I'm going to have to watch GoldenEye again now. I do like what we've been doing because its forcing me to go back, reveiw, and think more analytically about many things I've watched. Movie Goer, thanks for changing your mind about a lot of movies.

[Just your average movie goer]

Well, it's interesting for me seeing movies again after the shine wears off, so to speak. Movies can be very seductive sometimes and it's essay to be drawn under their sway. When I first saw Goldeneye, I was a teenager and well, as you can imagine, it definitely appealed to my adolescent mindset. I could just imagine myself growing up to be James Bond, running around exploding radar installations and driving beautiful women to Caribbean getaways - or at the very least, acting the guy. Also, there was the fact that there'd been such a lag since the last James Bond movie that it really felt like a resurrection of the series.

Since then, I've come to be a huge fan of Timothy Dalton and his efforts - admittedly The Living Daylights a lot more than Licence to Kill, but the latter is more entertaining than I originally gave it credit for. However, when Goldeneye came out, I didn't know these movies existed - even though I'd gone and seen Batman in the cinema the same year Licence to Kill came out. As far as I was aware, there was only one Bond and that was Sean Connery - because the only Bond movies I'd seen on TV were his. Oh, I once saw a bit of Live and Let Die on TV... I asked my friend what it was and he pointed to Roger Moore and told me that it was a James Bond movie... but I didn't believe him at the time. Anyway, the point of all this is that when I saw Goldeneye in the cinema, I felt was though it was the revival of a glorious piece of cinema past. And also Sean Bean was just the coolest villain ever and Judi Dench was just brilliant as M.

One of the interesting hypnotic effects of the movie at the time was that I didn't realise that Sean Bean was really only there for a third of the movie and Judi Dench only had one scene. It feels like she had many more because she had such a presence in that one scene - but that credit goes to Dame Judi Dench, not the film.

Actually, most movies are seductive the first time around and it's so easy to get pulled under their sway. I wrote about Inception actually in the General Film Critique thread and I wrote that I didn't like it. However, I have to say that while I was watching it, I was taken in. The wonderful work by that terrific cast of actors and actresses - and although Marion Cotillard had a pretty thankless role, she turned in a truly compelling performance. Then there was that exciting pulsing score by Hans and Zimmer, making everything sound so exciting... and weighty. In fact, it wasn't until about half an hour after the movie ended that I realised I'd been duped. See the ninth post in the general film critique thread for more details if you're interested.

Anyway, believe it or not, all of this is leading to a point and that is that the real test of a film comes with time and repeat viewing. Very rarely, in my experience, have I properly judged a film after one viewing. Sometimes, just one more view will change my mind. Quantum of Solace, the new Bond movie is an example of that. On my first viewing, I was really disappointed. On my second, I completely changed my mind about it and now it might well be my favourite Bond movie ever. That's pretty drastic - but that's the point. I think we're so overwhelmed when we see something in the cinema for the first time (more so in the cinema than on TV but it can still happen in the context of home viewing as well) that we don't think about it objectively. I was taken in by all the glamour in Goldeneye. I was put off by the obnoxious Alicia Keys-Jack White song with Quantum of Solace. Repeat viewing changed things for me.

Sometimes, my views change every time I watch a movie. I have love-hate things going on with The Dark Knight and Casino Royale for instance. The jury's still out on those movies in my opinion - however, I'll give them credit for the fact that I've reflected on them as much as I have. They're interesting films, even if they're mixed bags.

Time is the other factor. What films from now will people watch in another decade? Will kids in 2020 put on Iron Man? Will Burn After Reading be something studied at film schools in 2040? Will there be a new Batman in 2025 that will have everyone lamenting how awful Nolan's efforts were and how they've finally found something that's true to the comics? It'll be interesting to find out.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 06 June 2011 - 09:22 AM

[Zatoichi]

Just to throw something up because I haven't in a bit. I just caught Serenity last night at long last. I was hesitant to see it. I had heard mixed reactions from a lot of my friends, and I already knew a couple of the characters were going to die. Some had even said that it kinda brought down the series for them.

So I watched it, and I was surprised, I actually quite enjoyed it. Made me want to pop in the 1st ep of the show, but it was midnight and I had a game session to get to in the morning. I think the only real downsides for me were some of the character deaths. Especially Wash's. It was a total bs death. He does all of this amazing flying and then gets taken out by a giant spear thing that he has absolutely no chance against.

[Otal Nimrodi]

Can I say a movie I thought sucked, but that I decided was better later?

Repo: The Genetic Opera.

I watched it once, I can't remember when... Probably on my own? Anyway, I watched it, and I... DId not like it very much. I thought it was pretentious, just throwing 'weird' at the screen to see what sticks, and very much what I call a 'disaffected white boy' movie, to appeal to people who are sure the world is all horrible, everyone hates them, parents suck, etc. etc. etc.

I think what changed it was actually reading the lyrics to the song "Seventeen," and realizing that I couldn't honestly read it as a song for ANYONE who's 17, just this very specific situation. Now it's one of my favorites, because to me the whole movie is fun, energetic, and weird in a good way. It seems more like "This is weird, but WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING" than "This is just weird, WEIRD IS GOOD."

As for a movie that I changed my mind the other way... I guess, I'd have to go with the Nightmare on Elm Street remake. I really liked it the first time I saw it. Then I rewatched it. At first I thought the actors looked dazed and confused because they were pretending to be tired.

I later realized that they just weren't good actors.

[Lord Aquaman]

The first time I watched "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" I liked it though I felt it a bit unwieldy. But the more I watched it the less I liked it because I found I didn't like how it reset Hellboy, effectively undoing his development from the first film, I wasn't overly fond of how the romantic subplots played out and the film's antagonist just wasn't engaging despite a valiant effort by actor Luke Goss. Which is too bad because you can definitely feel director Guillermo Del Toro's passion for the characters, something you don't always find in movies like this.

[Just your average movie goer]

I've recently changed my mind about Terminator 2. I used to really hate it. These days however, I still see it as flawed but I think it's largely a worthwhile film. There are still a number of things that detract from the film for me but I no longer see them as deal-breakers. What the movie does well, it does well enough that I can forgive the flaws. The original is still the best though.

With Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, I think you're right that it's not a great movie per se. There isn't any real driving narrative throughout the film and though Prince Nuada is a threat to the protagonist, it never feels as though the wider world is at danger. Nevertheless though, I think it's a movie to treasure because it's just so much fun. It's really enjoyable, it's made with lots of love and that really comes across in the final piece. You can tell that all the people involved - whether in front of the camera or behind it, or in a room making models - are having fun and you get that fun as part of the audience.

It's a very different beast from the first movie, granted, and I absolutely agree that they reset the clock on Hellboy's character development. Possibly the thing I like least about it as that due to a scene near the end of it, Hellboy 3 is now something to hope against not hope for. It would completely spoil the enjoyment of these films if Hellboy was turned into another one of those doomed characters. I have no idea why so many people think that the only way to end a series is to kill off the main character/s - and as an aside, if that happens with The Dark Knight Rises, I will be most unimpressed.

Also, in line with your point about re-setting the clock for the character, the scene in question implies that Hellboy's destiny is to destroy the world someday... but he faced that destiny in the previous film and he overcame it. He chose to forge his own path and that was great. Also, it's much better to send a message like that to viewers rather than to say everything is pre-ordained so don't bother.

On a lesser note, I also think it's a shame that Hellboy and Manning's relationship is reset. I like the way they eventually came to respect each other at the end of the first movie.

However, on comparisons with the first movie, I will say a couple of other things. Firstly, they are different enough in tone and purpose that to try to objectively argue that one is better than the other would be a hard task. However, that said, Hellboy II is much more even in tone. The first movie is darker and that's fine - although, it also has a lot of lighter moments and that's also fine. The problem the first movie has with these things is that sometimes it has difficulty juggling the two. In particular, it's always uncomfortable viewing one section of the movie. In this section, Professor Broom is murdered by Kroenen and we also have a sequence where Hellboy is spying on Myers, the latter of which is quite fun. However by cutting back and forth between them, it's difficult to feel anything but uncomfortable as I said. The shock of the first event is undercut by interruptions and it's hard to really enjoy watching Hellboy spying on Myers because we know what's happening back at the BPRD. Perhaps that was the intention, perhaps not. Certainly, when Hellboy sees Liz getting the news, it's a very powerful moment but still, I wish the lead-up had been handled a little more deftly.

Finally, the first movie had an aim that was probably too grand for its limited budget. One cannot help but get the feeling that the finale was supposed to be more epic than what eventually transpired.

In Hellboy II, although the budget was still relatively small compared to most Hollywood projects, the new studio was much more supportive and what the filmmakers achieved in bringing onto the screen was nothing short of extraordinary. It's a work of art - and as I said earlier, it's good fun.

Of course, everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but just for myself, I thought Prince Nuada was a very engaging antagonist - and far more compelling than Rasputin, Ilsa and Kroenen were. He was a very good tragic villain. You could genuinely sympathise with him and his scenes could be both tense and moving at the same time. He was very rich character. The characters in the first movie on the other hand are just stock villains. You never know, nor care, where they're coming from.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 13 July 2012 - 12:15 AM