Hellboy (2004) -

After watching Hellboy II on the big screen, I felt the need to rewatch Hellboy, since I’d missed the middle part the first time I watched it and never gave it a good look. One thing I immediately noticed is how much Hellboy and Hellboy II are the same. The story, the characters and even some of the visual jokes and action scenes are so much the same that, in retrospect, I should really lower the score (3.5) I gave Hellboy II. Read more

Hellboy II: the Golden Army (2008) -

The signature style of Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola’s comic universe of Hellboy and the BPRD mix surprisingy well in this fantasy action thriller. Although the story is fairly straightforward and bears little hidden meaning, it’s entertaining and it looks great on the big screen. With a fantastic universe that’s likely to remind you strongly of del Toro’s recent Pan’s Labyrinth, the movie has its own feel, but lacks real originality, both in story and in setting. What originality it has, it lends from the comic book intellectual property of Mignola. Read more

Wanted (2008) -

Wanted makes you wonder about the merits of rating movies with stars. Rating a movie with stars relates it to all other movies you’ve seen sofar, nevermind the genre, age or other attributes. Wanted is a pretty good movie if all you were looking for is entertainment, but it misses quite a few marks if you try to put it into a specific category of movies. Read more

Hancock (2008) -

When I initially saw the posters for Hancock, I thought nothing of it. Just another action flick to be ignored. But I let myself be trapped by reviewers who gave it more than the benefit of the doubt and awarded it decent marks. Frankly, I don’t really see why. Read more

The Dark Knight (2008) -

I’ve commented before on the effect of a story being told as a comic before becoming a movie. In the Dark Knight (and starting in Batman Begins (2005)) Christopher Nolan takes Batman in an entirely new direction, if you only take the previous movies as a reference. But if you like the relatively new series of Batman comics, Legends of the Dark Knight, you’ll see that Nolan is merely taking cinematic Batman on the same road as his paper counterpart. Read more

The 300 Spartans (1962) -

It’s always hard to judge an movie in the action genre when it’s well over 4 decades old. On the one hand, you want to compare it to contemporary pieces, but on the other hand what really matters is whether you would recommend to anyone now. This becomes even harder when the movie has since been remade with up to date technology, with modern action iconography and choreography to look back on. Read more