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20.07.2008 : Kritik von Movie Jones
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Auch Moviehole ist vom roten Teufel angetan, eine gute Kritik ist da selbstverständlich.
Viel Lob für Hellboy 2 - Die goldene Armee gibt es von Moviehole. Die Seite ist hin und weg von der Comicverfilmung. Diese soll um ein gutes Stück besser gelungen sein als Teil 1. Die Gründe sind vielfältig, aber in erster Linie Guillermo del Toros Fantasie zuzuschreiben. Del Toro schafft es auf wunderbare Weise, eine märchenhafte Stimmung mit düsteren Elementen zu erschaffen. Seine Kreaturen sind nicht von dieser Welt und die ganze Handlung dreht sich nur darum, wie es die Menschheit mit den mystischen Figuren aufnehmen muss. Ein sagenhaftes Erlebnis. Der Fantasie sind dabei keine Grenzen gesetzt und so erwarten den Zuschauer vor allem auf dem Trollmarkt eine Unmenge an einzigartigen Kreaturen, die zig skurrile Dinge feil bieten. Herausragend sind auch die Tricktechniken die Del Toro in diesem Film verwendet. So sehen wir zwar die bekannten Computereffekte, aber es wurde auch ganz tief in die Trickkiste gegriffen. Wer sich noch an die Klassiker von Ray Harryhausen, jemand den Del Toro tief bewundert, erinnert, wird von den Stop-Motion-Sequenzen angetan sein.
Natürlich ist Hellboy 2 kein perfekter Film, vor allem die Schauspieler und deren Dialoge muten manchmal etwas seltsam an. Doch dies muss in so einem Film vielleicht sogar sein. Wem aber der erste Teil gefallen hat und wem auch Pans Labyrinth gefiel, der wird mit dem neuen Hellboy seine Freude haben. Der Film hat seine 4,5/5 Sternen redlich verdient.
Wir empfehlen die Lektüre der kompletten Kritik bei Moviehole. Hellboy 2 - Die goldene Armee startete am 11. Juli in den USA. Wir müssen noch bis zum 16. Oktober auf eine Rückkehr warten.
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Links zu den Filmkritiken aus Amerika und England von Pat Paone zusammengestellt.
Zur Zeit gibt es nur Kritiken aus den englischsprachigen Raum ,die sehr positiv sind. Wir müssen uns noch etwas gedulden, bis der Film bei uns angelaufen ist.
22. August 2008 :'Perlman happy to hide behind Hellboy mask' - The Age.com
21. August 2008 Hellboy Interview: Ron Perlman - Movies.ie
11 Juli 2008 : Hooray for “Hellboy II” - CNN.com
11. Juli 2008 : The London Free Press
11 Juli 2008 : “Hellboy II” tugs at the heart strings - New York Daily News
11 Juli 2008 :”Hellboy II” has it all - Salt Lake Tribune
10 Juli 2008 : “You're going to Hellboy” Slate.com
10.Juli 2008 : Ron Perlman awesome in 'Hellboy II: The Golden Army' - In Entertainment
10.Juli 2008 : “Hellboy II “ Is Hell-Bent on Monstrous Visuals - Underwire
10.Juli 2008 : Del Toro creates a visual feast with action-packed 'Hellboy II' - Mlive.com
10.Juli 2008 : “Hellboy II: The Golden Army”
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The Age.com Perlman happy to hide behind Hellboy mask
Beverly Hills
August 22, 2008
Actor Ron Perlman poses for photos at the premiere of "Hellboy II: The Golden Army".
Ron Perlman has a face made for makeup. But he's OK with that.
He says some of the most comfortable roles of his career have been when he wore lots of makeup. That includes parts from the mane man Vincent in the US TV series Beauty and the Beast to his title character in Hellboy.
"I was more comfortable behind the mask than naked like this," Perlman says during an interview at the Four Seasons Hotel. He is spending the day talking about his new film Hellboy II: The Golden Army," which opens next Thursday.
"The makeup made me freer because it was no longer me. It was a transformed version of me. It made acting more possible."
Perlman, like so many actors, had a lot of insecurities when he started acting. He considers himself lucky to have landed early acting jobs in Quest for Fire, The Name of the Rose and Beauty and the Beast where he could hide behind the mask of makeup.
"These days I am comfortable in my own skin. I don't need the mask as much as I used to. I just consider myself to be a working stiff who has just had a lot of great opportunities. I just take every job as it comes. If it happens to require me being transformed into a rather grotesque or abstract or obscure creation, then so be it."
Perlman is back in makeup to play the cigar-chomping, horned spawn of the graphic novel Hellboy in this sequel. And what makeup it is. In the movie, his character's skin is the colour of a stop light. His right arm is part fist, part planter. And there are two sliced sausage-looking stubs of horns on his head. It takes him five hours just to become the living version of the comic book character.
But it was the face under the makeup that made him the clear pick to play Hellboy back in 2004.
"A friend had suggested Ron to me," says Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. "I thought he would be perfect. I just hoped (director) Guillermo (del Toro) thought so."
He did.
Co-star Selma Blair is sad that people don't get to see the Perlman she knew on the set, who sings show tunes and just enjoys being an actor. She says she has never worked with another actor who has shown as much passion for the profession as Perlman.
That passion has helped him pass the long hours in all of those makeup chairs to be able to play the role - a role he did not hesitate to reprise even with all of the makeup.
"Now it becomes how much pleasure am I going to take playing masked characters. And when it is a character like Hellboy, I am sure there are a whole lot of other guys who wish they were me. It is a real honour to play this character because the heart of this character is truly mythic. He is a phenomenal character to spend time with," Perlman says.
MCT
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Hellboy's whole new world of excitement
Aug 21 2008 Mike Davies reviews the latest cinema releases
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN
ARMY * * * *
Cert 12A 110 mins
Other than Christopher Nolan, is there another director as hot as Guillermo del Toro? Pan’s Labyrinth may have been relatively small fry, but the Oscar was worth its weight in gold. Hailed as a genius of the imagination, he was signed up to direct The Hobbit and it gave him the opportunity for the sequel to his 2004 adaptation of Mike Mignola’s cult graphic novel.
Hellboy’s origins as a demon child conjured by the Nazis but raised to fight the forces of darkness, are dismissed in a brief caption summary before launching into a 1955 prologue as the young Hellboy (who touchingly believes in Santa) is told a Christmas Eve story by his adoptive father (John Hurt).
It reveals how a war was waged between humans and Earth’s fantastical creatures, a truce only declared after elf-king Balor was horrified at the destruction wrought by his unliving army. Humans would get the cities, the forests belonged to nature.
Fast forward to the present day and, with mankind encroaching on the natural world, Balor’s resentful albino son, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), has returned from self-exile to resume the conflict, looking to gather the three pieces of the magical crown that will reawaken the slumbering mechanoid warriors.
One he recovers attacking a New York auction, the second by killing his father. The third is in the keeping of psychically-linked twin sister Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), and it’s she that Hellboy and his sidekicks at the Bureau for Paranormal Research Defense have to find to prevent apocalypse.
So, there’s the plot and enormous scope for action-packed set pieces, something the film delivers by the ton, including a humdinger battle with a towering forest elemental in the heart of Manhattan. But that’s just there to sell popcorn. It’s in the details, themes, characters and eyeball popping visual imagination that del Toro excels.
The film is a cornucopia of his fascination for things Catholic and clockwork. Crosses are everywhere while gears and cogs turn like some Swiss watchmaker’s fantasy run riot. And then there’s his creatures, mythical beings out of Bosch’s wildest nightmares.
Here is the terrible beauty of the Angel of Death, the denizens of the Troll Market who make the Mos Eisley cantina mob the seem drab, and, most wonderful of all, the Tooth Fairies, cute but deadly little creatures that feed on the calcium in bones. And, as one marvellous scene shows, have a drama queen tendency to ham it up.
But CGI and prosthetics mean nothing without heart. Deeply expressive, even encased in red rubber, Ron Perlman is magnificent as Hellboy; irascible, wisecracking, nonchalant, attention-seeking and yet, as his relationship with moody pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair) shows, as much a confused, insecure and vulnerable beer-swigging lug as any man when it comes to understanding women.
This time, de Toru’s amped up the involvement of sensitive aquaman empath Abe Sapien (now both voiced and played by Doug Jones), his shy love for Nuala offering poignant counterpoint to the tempestuous romance between his team members. Love, del Toro, seems to say, truly is of another world. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be the drunken fool and singalong to Barry Manilow’s Can’t Smile Without You.
There is a new arrival to head up the team, prissily Teutonic Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) who’s basically sentient ectoplasm inside a diving suit. It’s typical of del Toro’s character finessing that, while he may indeed be the gasshole that Hellboy calls him, he too has a bruised soul and a tragic past. And he chills out making doll’s house furniture.
Funny, fantastical and feverish, watching is like entering another world. It is the skill of del Toro and his players that makes you realise that it really is our own.
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(CNN) -- Will Smith's Hancock wasn't the first superhero with bad habits and a bad attitude. Hellboy, the protagonist of "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," has a bit of the devil in him: His skin is red; he has two shorn-off horns on his head, a gargantuan club fist and a long, slippery tail.
Hellboy
Ron Perlman returns in the title role in "Hellboy II: The Golden Army."
He also has a down-to-earth side: a fondness for Cuban cigars, Mexican beer, TV and candy. He has a short fuse and he'd like a little appreciation for his efforts, please.
He deserves it, too.
This rank outsider isn't a billionaire like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark. He's not even a scientist like Bruce Banner. He's more of a working stiff, a slugger with a gruff manner and a stogie in the side of his mouth -- but he wants to bat for the right team. (According to writer-artist Mike Mignola, the character was inspired by his father, a cabinetmaker.)
Hellboy -- or "Red" to his friends -- has switched studios since his 2004 big-screen debut, from Columbia to Universal. Not that it shows. Writer-director Guillermo del Toro is still pulling the strings, and the key creative personnel are all back, including Ron Perlman in the title role, Selma Blair as the pyrokinetic Liz (now Mrs. Hellboy), Doug Jones as the piscine Abe Sapien (the brains to Red's brawn), and -- behind the scenes -- cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, and art whizzes Stephen Scott and Peter Francis.
Between them, they conjure up one hell of a creature feature.
"Hellboy II" boasts a dazzling multitude of imaginary beings: the deceptively delicate tooth fairies (so called because they eat bone, with a fondness for teeth in particular); the elfin king whose antlers grow out of his head to form a crown; the plantlike forest god that collapses into a strangely beautiful floral mulch right under the Brooklyn Bridge; the magnificent Angel of Death, an old crone who unfurls her wings to reveal a sparkling set of eyes (an avian variation on the creepiest creation in the acclaimed "Pan's Labyrinth," del Toro's last movie).
Then there's the redoubtable Johann Kraus, an officious but in many ways admirable German who only exists as a vapor trail -- except when he's bottled up in an ingeniously modified, but still splendidly archaic, deep-sea diving suit.
When a filmmaker can invest even a puff of smoke with so much chutzpah you know he's on to something. It's wonderful to see del Toro let his imagination run rampant like this. iReport.com: Did you see "Hellboy II"? Share your review
The plot concerns an ancient race that's determined to wage war on humanity, but it's secondary to del Toro's amazing characters.
The Mexican director's first Hollywood movies ("Mimic" and "Blade II") were far less distinctive than his Spanish-language films: "Cronos," "The Devil's Backbone" and "Pan's Labyrinth." You couldn't really call "Hellboy II" an advance on the latter -- "Pan's" was nominated for six Oscars and won three -- but it's obvious he relishes this material. It's pulpy and hammy and unashamedly lowbrow, and del Toro has the confidence and power to make it his own. The film feels very free, loose and (unusually for a special-effects picture) improvisational.
An outsize personality such as Perlman is in his element here. Even when the wisecracks fall short -- there are an awful lot of "ass" gags -- they are closer to the grubby, subversive impulses of the comic books than the over-hyped, market-tested, industrial-strength blockbuster adaptations Hollywood churns out.
It's not for nothing that the central tension running through this movie is Red's anarchic streak, his sometimes irresponsible need to be his own man in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (the "X-Men"-like institution where he works) and in his marriage. Scratch the surface, and this is a film about love and loyalty, figuring out where your deepest bonds lie.
Highbrows may damn "Hellboy II" as a "comic book movie," though even they would have to grant that its wonderful idiosyncrasies indicate brilliance. But it's more than that. Hellboy does so much growing up over the course of these 110 minutes, we may have to call him "Hellman" from now on.
Let's hope Universal stays the course and gives us that opportunity. People as creative as del Toro and his gang need all the support we can give them.
"Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is rated PG-13 and runs 110 minutes.
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The devil, you say
Fri, July 11, 2008
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON
Pyrokinetic Liz (Selma Blair) and Hellboy (Ron Perlman) in Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
Could the year's least conflicted superhero be a leathery-red, stogie-smoking spawn of Satan?
Believe it.
After months of tormented do-gooders battling evil when they should be crawling on a therapist's couch and sucking their thumbs, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) reveals himself to be a refreshingly well-adjusted man's man. Or demon's demon.
So what if he's the beast of the apocalypse? Cataclysmic biblical prophecies are the least of his issues in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, the sequel to Hellboy, the 2004 adaptation of the cult series of graphic novels.
For one, there's his volatile new romance with sullen, flame-generating Liz Sherman (Selma Blair). For another, there are the always-prickly office politics at the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, characterized by smarmy, self-serving Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor). And lest we forget all those fearsome mystical entities bent on world domination.
Is it any wonder our working-class hero is sometimes too eager to imbibe multiple brews? Couple this near-parody set-up with the sumptuous imagination of director Guillermo del Toro and you have a hip, sweet charmer that's only masquerading as a derivative wannabe blockbuster.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army may not be a masterpiece -- del Toro is capable of much more -- but it is whip-smart, painstakingly crafted and exuberant.
Opening in Christmas 1955, the sequel finds a young, energetic Hellboy waiting for Santa Claus. To distract his adopted son, Professor Bloom (John Hurt), the academic who rescued the child from the clutches of the Nazis, reads Red a bedtime story.
Once upon a time, the story goes, an otherworldly kingdom created the Golden Army, a legion of machines so unstoppable they nearly wiped out humanity. Disheartened by the bloodshed, their ruler struck a truce and split up the crown that commanded the army. Rebuild the crown, and you stir the Golden Army.
Skipping ahead to the present we're introduced to Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), a ghostly figure who has spent the last few eons nursing a grudge and studying a lot of kung-fu. Determined to strike back at humanity, he sets out to cobble together the crown and unleash the Golden Army.
Opposing Nuada is his twin sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), who seeks refuge at the BPRD and strikes up a rapport with resident telepath and mer-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones). That he should develop a crush on her is entirely believable: you probably would, too, if you spent your days in an aquarium.
Throughout, del Toro filters the slam-bash-bang action through his own macabre sensibilities, conjuring calcium-craving tooth fairies and a leafy, spellbinding "Elemental" that sprouts up in the centre of New York City.
But for all the visuals, it is the movie's baroque, skewed bearing that distinguishes it from, say, X-Men, another fantasy about mutants sworn to protect a populace that detests them. And unlike the slick, smug Men in Black, Hellboy II wears its sizeable, squishy heart on its cuff.
Here is a comic-book yarn in which the high point is a love-sick duet of Barry Manilow's Can't Smile Without You by an intoxicated Hellboy and Abe.
And, no, it's not too early to call for an encore.
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HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
What: Adventure directed by Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair
Classification: 14A
Where: Rainbow Cinemas, Galleria London (519-434-3073); SilverCity, Masonville Place (519-673-4125); Wellington 8, 983 Wellington Rd. (519-673-4125); Westmount 6 Cinemas, 785 Wonderland Rd. (519-474-2152); Galaxy Cinemas, 417 Wellington St., St. Thomas (519-631-5777)
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New York Daily News
In 2004, Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy" repeatedly asked, "What is it that makes a man a man?" In this terrific followup, del Toro aims to find the answer.
Originally created as a comic book character, Hellboy isn't a man in the typical sense of the word, what with the red skin, horns and tail. But as played so perfectly by Ron Perlman, he's not really that different from any other guy going through an early midlife crisis.
A reluctant hero who makes Will Smith's Hancock look like a cub scout, Hellboy - also known as HB - is no better off than he was in the first film. Technically a demon meant to destroy the Earth, he has found another calling by fighting evil for the government. He's still hiding out at a secret agency for paranormal research, and he still feels like an unwanted freak. He's finally living with girlfriend Liz (a stiff Selma Blair), but it doesn't take much to spark her fiery temper these days.
What HB needs is a little love, and he decides to get it by going public. It's not long before he has his chance: the Underworld's Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) is determined to annihilate mankind, and plans to enlist an army of mechanical soldiers for help. It's up to Hellboy and his cohorts - including bureaucrat Tom (Jeffrey Tambor), aquatic mutant Abe (Doug Jones), and disembodied psychic Kraus (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) - to stop him.
Unfortunately, nothing is ever easy for HB and as soon as he steps outside, the masses are less impressed than appalled. They don't see him as the man he has tried to become, but as the demon he was born to be.
Sensing that Hellboy is perpetually caught between two worlds, Prince Nuada tries to pull him back to the dark side. It's HB's unique challenge - beer-drinking, cigar-chomping pessimist that he is - to find reasons to remain in the light.
The endlessly inventive del Toro creates visual fantasies unlike any other, and the creatures on display here are truly extraordinary. But amid all the costumes, all the action, and all the special effects, it's the humanity that makes his work so memorable. Yes, the monsters are amazing. But the moment when a heartsick Hellboy discovers Barry Manilow? Priceless.
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Copyright©Sylvia Untermann-2007/2008
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