STUDIO: Warner Brothers
RELEASE DATE: October 28, 2008
STARRING: (THE VOICES OF) Tom Hanks
WRITTEN BY: Robert Zemeckis & William Broyles Jr.
DIRECTED BY: Robert Zemeckis
FEATURES: Smokey and Steamer Song Not Seen In Theaters
You Look Familiar: The Many "Polar Faces" of Tom Hanks
A Genuine Ticket to Ride Documentary Gallery: 5 Featurettes
True Inspirations: An Author’s Adventure: Profiling Chris Van Allsburg
Believe: Josh Groban Performs at the Greek Theatre
Flurry of Effects Gallery: 5 Motion-Capture Sessions
Snow Angels: Movie makers' Christmas Memories
Theatrical Trailer

You won't find many bigger Guillermo Del Toro fans than myself. I have a framed drawing of (and by) the man in my office. I adore Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone. I think Del Toro is one of the most inspired visionaries working in cinema today. He has a hard-to-come-by skill to bring his dreams and nightmare to glorious, cinematic life. He doesn't just want to talk about the things that go bump in the night, he wants to bring them to life, preferably with puppets. With Pan's and Devil's (and, arguably, Cronos), he displayed a masterful storytelling technique that merged fantasy and reality into something completely unique. And yet, he hasn't been able to fully capture that in his second language. Where Pan's Labyrinth played to all of Del Toro's strengths, Hellboy II: The Golden Army allows several of his significant weaknesses to come to the forefront. Watching The Golden Army a second time in Blu-Ray High Definition, I could more easily forgive the flawed pacing and storytelling of the film and allow myself to be enraptured by the visually entrancing design, but it doesn't mean those flaws aren't there. The Golden Army is an interesting case of a movie made better by a high definition transfer and the special features that accompany it. Hellboy II still stands in the lesser half of one of my favorite director's filmography but the Blu-Ray release is remarkable enough to redeem several of the film's shortcomings.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is based on a fairy tale that the big red guy's (Ron Perlman) proud papa (John Hurt) told him when he was an impressionable child. The idea that the fables and myths that we all know and love are based on truth is one that Del Toro has always used in his films. The story is that of the "creatures of the forest vs. people off the city" variety and details an indestructible crown that gives its bearer power over the legendary Golden Army and its division into three parts to help maintain peace. Of course, where there's peace, there's someone looking to destroy it. In this case, it's an unruly, immortal prince named Nuada (Luke Goss), who will go to any lengths, including putting his twin sister Nuala (Anna Walton) in danger, to get his hands on the crown. Nuala helps the Bureau For Paranormal Research (and the loving hands of Doug Jones' Abe Sapien) stop her crazy brother. The flame-throwing Liz (Selma Blair) is back in the mix and a new character, Johann Kraus (voiced by Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane) joins the team. Kraus is actually just a gas held together by a diving bell. A talking gas, a red guy, a blue guy, a fish man, bugs, creatures, devils - it's a Guillermo Del Toro movie.

Critics mostly adored Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The 88% on Rotten Tomatoes says it all. That's a ridiculously high number, especially for a summer action movie sequel based on a comic book. Maybe it's because we're always hardest on the ones we love, but I'm not as satisfied with Golden Army as others. There are traditional "superhero" beats in The Golden Army that fall short because Del Toro is just not that interested in making a standard action movie. The material that's not standard, like a great sequence in "The Troll Market" is mesmerizing and makes Golden Army worth seeing on its own, but the action movie beats, including the climax, are not very effective. When the movie really puts its title into play, it's hard to care because you can tell that Guillermo is much more interested in the design than a standard comic book movie ending.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is the kind of visual extravaganza that was made to be seen in high definition. To be honest, watching it in HD at home, I was able to appreciate the detail of the design much more than I could on the big screen. Universal's 1080p picture on the BD release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army is flawless. And the special features are equally remarkable. I truly enjoy Universal's U-Control, which allows you to pick a series of featurettes to watch picture-in-picture as you watch the movie. In the case of Golden Army, it allows viewers a glimpse at Del Toro's amazing notebook, a volume that he carries every where he goes with sketches and ideas for movies. I consider a career highlight actually being able to see the notebook in person. But U-Control is just the beginning. Hellboy II: The Golden Army is part of a wave of BD releases that are designed to be immersive, interactive experiences. You don't just watch the movie any more. With Golden Army, you can create your own comic book with frames from the movie, you can participate in BD-Live, and you can even see some scenes of the movie in various stages of special effects design simultaneously. Of course, the traditional extras - two commentaries, deleted scenes, featurettes - are also all in place. Golden Army is a fantastic BD release with everything that fans of the movie could possibly ask for and more. It's enough to make the flaws of the actual movie, at least in this hardcore Del Toro fan's eyes, easy to overlook.