Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

I want to make it known that I am part of the small population that liked the first Hellboy and I own it on DVD. I think that it gained popularity once it was released on DVD as it didn't do all that great in the theatres on its initial release. I think that it made a total of 26 million and this second movie made that in the first day.


With all that being said I wasn't disappointed at all with the second installment of the Hellboy series. The one negative thing that I will say is that I wasn't sure sometimes if I had entered Pan's Laberinth or if I was still watching Hellboy. This movie goes way out there in terms of creatures and the fantasy side of this comic book hero.

The Skinny:

Basically the story is that Long ago the humans and the elfish creatures waged war on each other and as they battled the tide was turning in the favor of the humans so the elfish King had a Golden Army built. This Army wiped out anyone who opposed the elfish King as he controlled them with the crown that he wore. As he saw the destruction they raged he realized that no one person should control this power so he stuck a treaty with the Humans and split the crown into 3 pieces. This enraged the Kings son and he went into hiding until the opportuity presented itself to reclaim the crown for himself.

After many years the prince comes back and starts collecting the pieces of the crown so that he can take over the world.

Hellboy is sent to stop him.

If you liked the first Hellboy movie you'll like this one too. It is full of really cool special effects and action scenes so if you like those kinds of movies you should get a real kick out of this one.

The Incredible Hulk

This Movie Freaking Rocks!



I have been waiting for someone to do another Hulk movie since the first one came out. Don't get me wrong that movie had it's moments, but it was really hard to sit for 45 minutes in anticipation of seeing the Hulk while the story is building. In this new movie you didn't have to wait more then 15 minutes before the big green fella showed up.

Let me just say that I am a huge Marvel fan and this movie didn't disappoint. I was ramping myself up for this movie watching trailers, the first movie again, and even playing Hulk ultimate destruction with my son on the Playstation 2. One of the things that I liked about this movie was that they really tried to incorporate many of the video games aspects into the film. One example is when the Hulk is facing off against the Abomination and he tears a car in half then grips the 2 pieces to create Steel fists to pound on the Abomination.
I am a big fan of Edward Norton so I was really excited to see that he had the lead role in the movie. They really tried to make him look and act like the Bruce Banner from the TV series and I think he pulled it off really well. When the Hulk did arrive I liked that they infused all the muscley details that they could into this version. They had several closeups of the Hulks face and really made sure that you could see the emotions that he was feeling (Mostly Anger and Rage) in the scene.
The short skinny on this movie is that Bruce Banner has been living as a fugitive from the US Army and General Ross for about 5 years after the Hulk puts Betty Ross in the hospital following some tests that triggered the big green guy to appear. Banner is working in a bottling plant in Brazil when some of his blood finds its way into a bottle of soda leading the Army to where he is hiding. He has been in contact with someone on the net named Mr. Blue who has been helping him try to find a cure. After escaping the Army in Brazil Bruce heads back to the lab where it all started to get his research files only to find they are missing. He runs into his longtime love Betty and she starts helping him with the Army breathing down their necks lead by Emil Blonsky and Russian soldier on loan to General Ross. Blonsky volunteers to be injected with a super soldier serum to help him deal with the Hulk only to start wanting more and more power. Well he ends up getting what he wants at the price of looking like a Freak. He and the Hulk have a battle royal in the streets and rooftops of New York, NY leading up to the climax of the movie.

I would dare say that you would not be disappointed with this movie as it is a thrill ride from start to finish.

You Don't Mess With The Zohan!

I laugh just saying the name of this movie. It was Hilarious!

I am a big Adam Sandler fan anyway but this film reminded me of his earlier movies. He went back to basics so to speak of using the formula that made Billy Madison, Happy Gillmore and The Waterboy such huge successes. I saw an interview with Sandler and he said that he wrote it with his buddies about 7 years ago, so that may be why it is more like the humor that we saw back then.

I will give you a little warning about this film and that is that it is VERY sexually oriented. I would say that 90% of the jokes and lines in this movie were related to SEX. If that stuff offends you then this movie probably isn't for you.

The Zohan is the most popular guy in his town, everything just falls into place for him. He is a Covert Israeli anti-terrorism specialist and no-one is better then he is at it. It starts out with the Zohan getting picked up for a mission while he's at the beach and he is told that he must capture his Nemesis the Phantom....Again!

He goes to the Phantoms stronghold to capture him but he is secretly wanting to escape the life of a super soldier and make everyone's hair Silky Smooth (A borrowed line from Billy Madison, as if you didn't already know that) so they can be happy. Well after many funny scenes including one of my favorites where the Zohan disassembles one of the bad guys machine guns just by moving his hands up and down he has a show down with the Phantom. Zohan eventually fakes his own death instantly immortalizing the Phantom among his people.

Zohan then heads to New York the work in the Paul Mitchell hair salon to finally fulfill his dream. He doesn't want to be recognized by anyone so he borrows the name Scrappy Coco from a couple of pouches he met on the plane ride to america.

Long story short he finally talks Rafaella into letting him cut hair at her Salon not knowing that she is really the Phantoms little sister. They start falling in love and Zohan has to help her and the other business owners in her neighborhood fight a greedy land developer (The guy that is famous for saying "Are you ready to rumble" at sporting events through out the USA) to save the day. He teams up with the Phantom and they kick some butt against the Developers hired Redneck Thugs led by Dave Mathews (without his band) and save the day.

All in All this is one of those movies that you are guaranteed to laugh out loud at.

Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Let me first say I have been excited to see this movie since I first saw previews to it. I grew up on the first 3 films and loved each one of them and in preparation for this film I watched all of them again.

In the newest installment of the Indiana Jones saga the hardest thing for me to get used to is that Harrison Ford aged 20 years since we saw him riding off into the sunset in the Last Crusade. I really liked the fact that they embraced this in the movie rather then tried to disguise it. They actually poked fun at it with “Old man” and “Gramps” comments from Shai Labeouf’s character “Mutt” and even in the dialogue that Indiana uses.

I liked that they changed bad guys in this one even though it was always enjoyable to watch the Nazi’s get theirs in the first and third films. Indy is up against the Russians who are hell bent on retrieving a crystal skull from the same warehouse that you see in the end of The Raiders of the lost Ark. Needless to say they don’t get their hands on it during the opening scenes in which Indiana escapes their clasps and a Nuclear blast to boot!

Indiana then teams up with Mutt Williams in an effort to find Mutt’s mom and a mutual friend of Jones and Williams who seems to have been the only person who had been to the hidden city of gold where the crystal skull is to reside. All this while eluding the Russians only to get captured, then escape, then get captured again, then escape….well you get the idea, all in an effort to return the crystal skull to the city of gold before the Russians get their hands on the power of the skull.

We all know that the first films had their fair share of gruesome scenes but it seems as though Temple of Doom pushed that over the edge with the whole heart getting ripped out of the guy’s chest thing. I have noticed that the gruesomeness was toned down a bit in the Last Crusade and stayed on about the same level in the Crystal Skull. There was a battle with huge fire ants in which a few of the Russians bit the bullet, but it made you squirm in your seat more than anything.

All in All this is a very good movie and if you are any kind of an Indiana Jones fan you will really like it. The ending was a little over the top and definitely had George Lucus's fingerprints all over it, but I think that you will really enjoy it!