Batman vs. Hulk vs. Hellboy

THE DARK KNIGHT

This review should be for all the Superhero movies this summer, but alas I have not seen all of them. I have not seen Hancock or Iron Man yet. Hellboy 2, Hulk 2, and The Dark Knight I have seen. So this will be a mash up of sorts. Given that all three of these films are the second chapter in their respective series let's begin with the giant elephant in the room, Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight. Being a HUGE DC Comics fan and an even bigger fan of Batman Begins I had high expectations for this, and man was I happy. I think the thing that I like best going in was that this film felt like a natural continuation of the first film. The themes setup in Begins pay off nicely in Knight. If you edited the two films together you wouldn't know the difference. Much like Superman: The Movie and Superman II.



This time Batman is fighting the Joker played by the late Heath Ledger. Ledger is spot on as the Joker, although this is a variation on the character. A lot of people have said this is just like the comic. No it's not. Stop with that. The Joker in the comics is much more maniacal at times than Ledger. In fact I thought Ledger could have dug even deeper, but then we are not talking about a summer PG-13 movie anymore are we? Nolan pushes the rating as far as it can go here. This Joker is something Batman has created. He is the afterbirth of Batman Begins. he is the Yin to the Yang. In other words they cannot exist without each other, and would serve no purpose other than to balance the other out. That is what this movie is all about. You can't be a Cowboy if there are no Indians. In this film Batman has to deal with not only his own split identity issues from Begins, but all the loons lining up to take a shot at taking the Sheriff out. Yummy Batman stuff! Writer/Director Nolan gets it, that's why it works.


The other characters also play a big part of the story. The Harvey Dent/Two-Face character has never been my favorite character in the Batman world, but here he works pretty well. Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent represents what Batman would be if Batman was legal and political. But as we all know with Politics, compromises must be made to get things done, and in the Dark Knight we are told that playing by the rules may seem cool, it rarely and unfortunately does not work in a city as dirty and insane as Gotham. As Dent is transformed into Two Face, he becomes a fusion of the Joker and Batman, which as we all know would drive one insane. Which if looked at carefully represents a horrific view of our political system in action these days.



Now these are all things I took away from the film, you may disagree, but I felt the drama, action, and subtext made for wonderfully rich and multi-layered film. This is a great film that is now the number two money making film of all time. In all my life I never thought i would see a comic book movie make this much bank. Ah these are good times indeed if you grew up reading comics and dreaming of seeing them on a big screen.



HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY

Next up is Hellboy Dos: The Golden Army. the first Hellboy was a guilty pleasure for me. It has gotten better on each viewing for me. And Del Toro is on of the few amazing artists working in film today. I was much hyped for H2. And I have to say as much as I enjoyed it I thought it was too much in the final analysis. The film starts off on rather awkward note of a pre-teen Hellboy learning of the Golden Army with his father played by John Hurt again from Part 1. Eventually the Army is unleashed and Hellboy and his Superhero sidekicks must fend off the Army from taking over the world.





I love the character and his relationship with Liz the flame woman, and I LOVE Abe Sapian. He is by far the best thing about Hellboy for me. This time they get a German guy in suit who is actually all gas. He is a great and welcome addition. These are all great and fun as hell but where the movie started to where me down was that every single character in this movie is a monster of some sort and I mean everyone but Jeffery Tambor. It's monster overkill! There is the Star Wars cantina city like Mos Eisly that is full of monsters. But every plot point leads them to a new monster that tries to be more over the top crazy than the last. And it's cool shit don't get me wrong, but they all look like they came out of the casting all for his last film Pan's Labryinth. That film had a great blend of human/monster. This is all monster.

Ron Pearlman does another great job as the big red kid. and the ending fight between him and the kung-fu fighting albino guy is breathtaking. I'm looking forward to part 3 but that might be a decade away with Del Toro making The Hobbit movies. Someday the baby will be awoken again.



THE INCREDIBLE HULK

The Incredible Hulk (aka Hulk 2) Going in I was thinking this was a complete reboot of the Hulk, but it actually is a coy sequel to Ang Lee's film without ripping it a new one. I really enjoyed Ang Lee's hulk, but like Superman returns I can understand why it pissed some people off. Most people criticize those films for too much talking and not enough smashing shit up. Well we have smashing now. Hulk smashes! This is the non-thinking man's Hulk movie, and I enjoyed it. It was really quite comforting to see how they left Bruce Banner where they left him in Hulk 1 and started from there, just replacing the actors by showing them in a recap of events from film 1. Kind of helped you ease into the new actors.



This time Banner is trying to cure himself while not being caught by Col. Ross, now played by William Hurt. (An odd casting choice but it works somehow) Hurt wants to find out what makes the jolly green giant tick and after obtaining some DNA from him he creates a super G.I. Joe played by Tim Roth in a great villain role. Roth sees the Hulk not as a job but as a challenge. He really relishes the opportunity to knock heads with this guy and once he OD's on Hulkroids and becomes the film's main baddie creature Abomination it is on for real. The fights are great. I mean yeah you can see it's still CGI effects, but they are fun and once you let that go, this film is pure comic book fun. Norton makes a great banner on par with Bill Bixby, who makes a great cameo in a really creative way as does Lou Ferringo. In fact, Lou's is really funny and well done.

On a side note I LOVE how Marvel is handling the way their movies are made. Iron Man has a cameo by Nick Fury, Iron Man has a cameo in Hulk and Captain America's shield makes an cameo in Iron Man. The plan is to merge all these heroes into one badass Avengers movie in 2012. That would be sweet!!!!!!! If only DC could do this...I would be in heaven.



So is this the greatest super hero summer of all time. It is. And I still have not seen Iron Man, and I can't explain why! Go see all of these films if you are a lover of comic book movies. You can't go wrong any of them.