I saw a movie this weekend that was like a breath of fresh air. It was not only visually imaginative but also had characters who were interesting and, despite their bizarre nature, believable. It was fun and engaging and I don't recall once thinking that my intelligence was being insulted, highly unusual for a big summer blockbuster.
I saw another movie that was like a breath of air that was just breathed out of a guy who's been living on burritos for days. Whereas the first movie had an imaginative story, this one took one of the most famous imaginative stories in history and turned it into just another adventure story and not only was my intelligence being insulted, it was being dragged and spat upon by the plot while the special effects called it names.
The first movie was Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. The second one was Journey To The Center Of The Earth.
Journey To The Center Of The Earth is, of course, inspired by the famous Jules Verne book of the same name. Even back in Verne's time, this story was pretty well regarded as unlikely whereas today, it is regarded as impossible. That, of course, didn't stop the filmmakers from treating the whole situation quite seriously. This is one of those movies that acts as if the unbreakable laws of science are actually more along the lines of being the loosely enforced guidelines of science. The great thing about modern movies is that concepts like, "This whole situation is bloody well impossible," often don't keep people from walking out of the theater and saying, "Awesome!" For instance, I rather enjoyed The Core, another movie about the center of the earth that is completely impossible. Despite that, I just couldn't help but like a movie with the guts to have a space shuttle land in the Los Angeles River. The only thing that would have made it perfect was to have two guys walking across the river with a piece of glass that the shuttle could have broken through and some chicken coops and watermelon crates that could have been knocked over. Unfortunately, Journey doesn't have moments like that.
You know what does have great, memorable, gutsy moments? Hellboy 2, that's what. I was not a fan of the first Hellboy film so I'm just amazed that I'm so enthusiastic about this one. There's the animated opening that tells of an ancient war between humans and the supernatural races, the confrontation between an elvish prince and his father, a battle between Hellboy's crew and a forest god, visiting a troll market, pleading with an angel and what happens when they meet the unstoppable Golden Army. As I said, its characters are not only interesting but believable, quite a feat since its main characters are a demon, a fishman, a firestarter, an intelligent gas cloud and a pair of elvish twins. This is truly one hell of a movie ONE HELL OF A MOVIE! GET IT? I AM AWESOME! After Iron Man I doubted I'd see another high quality big studio summer blockbuster type of film this year since that's usually how it works. You'll get maybe one excellent summer film per year if you're lucky. The best you can expect from the rest normally is a movie that has enough entertainment value that allows you to overlook its abject stupidity. Yet here we are with Iron Man and Hellboy 2, two movies that will probably mkae those 10 Best Lists that critics put together every year and it looks like The Dark Knight will be joining them this Friday. I wonder what it is about this year that caused studio executives to greeenlight huge budgets for movies without saying things like, "Let's throw out all this character crap and fruity dialogue and toss in some more explosions and some bimbos with tits." Whatever it was, let's hope this is a start of a trend.
Journey, of course, is not part of this trend. Sure, it has a T-Rex. It's hard to screw up a scene with a T-Rex whether the T-Rex be advanced computer graphics or some guy in a rubber suit. I could go on for days about everything that's wrong with this movie and "everything" would include Brendan Fraser's scientist character who is either a genius or a doofus depending on the needs of the script, Anita Briehm's sexy Icelandic mountain guide character who is either a competent survivalist or a damsel in distress depending on the needs of the script and Josh Hutcherson's annoying teenager character who is always an annoying teenager. And that's just the characters. I haven't gotten into the way the plot makes no sense (somehow they got from the Earth's surface to its center in the space of a few minutes) or, with a few exceptions, it's unappealing graphics and special effects.
So, to sum up, rush to the theaters for Hellboy 2 and wait for Journey to come out on Netflix. You all could have just skipped to this paragraph without spending the time it took to read everything else. If that annoys you, feel free to email me or, rather, my Trash folder.
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