HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY [2008 / 2012] [Limited Edition SteelBook] [Blu-ray] [UK Release]
Believe It Or Not He’s The Good Guy!
The fate of mankind hangs in the balance when a ruthless Prince awakens an unstoppable army of creatures and wages war with the human world. It's up to Hellboy and his team of paranormal outcasts to face off with the forces of darkness in the ultimate battle of good versus evil.
From the visionary director Guillermo del Toro of ‘Pan's Labyrinth.’ ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY ' takes you into fantastical worlds with imaginative creatures and thrilling fight sequences unlike anything you've ever seen before.
FILM FACT: Awards and Nominations: 2008 Golden Schmoes Awards: Nominated: Best Sci-Fi Movie of the Year. Nominated: Best Special Effects of the Year. Nominated: Best DVD/Blu-Ray of the Year. 2008 Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA: Nominated: Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing for a Foreign Feature for Glen Gathard (foley mixer). Nominated: Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film for Michael Keller (re-recording mixer). 2008 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards: Nominated: Rondo Statuette for Best Film forGuillermo del Toro. 2009 Academy Awards®: Nominated: Best Achievement in Make-Up for Mike Elizalde and Thomas Floutz. 2009 Screen Actors Guild Awards: Nominated: Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture for Andrew Owen, Bradley James Allan, Bonnie Morgan, Mark Chapman, Michael Weis and Peng Zhang. 2009 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA: Win: Best Horror Film. Nominated: Best Make-Up for Mike Elizalde. Nominated: Best Special Effects for Adrian De Wet, Andrew Chapman, Eamonn Butler and Mike Wassel. 2009 Empire Awards, UK: Nominated: Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Superhero. 2009 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards: Win: Best Supporting Actor for Doug Jones. Win: Best Actor for Ron Perlman. Win: Best Make-Up/Creature FX for Cliff Wallace, David Martí, Mike Elizalde and Montse Ribé. Win: Best Wide-Release Film. Nominated: Best Screenplay for Guillermo del Toro. Nominated: Best Supporting Actress for Anna Walton. 2009 Gold Derby Awards: Nominated: Best Make-Up/Hair for Deborah Jarvis and Lesley Smith. 2009 Hugo Awards: Nominated: Best Dramatic Presentation in Long Form for Guillermo del Toro (story/screenplay/director) and Mike Mignola (story/based on the comic). 2009 International Film Music Critics Award: Nominated: Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction Film for Danny Elfman. 2009 International Online Cinema Awards: Nominated: Best Visual Effects. Nominated: Best Make-Up and Hairstyling. 2009 Italian Online Movie Awards: Nominated: Best Makeup (Miglior trucco). Nominated: Best Special Effects (Migliori effetti speciali). 2009 Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA: Nominated: Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR in a Foreign Feature Film for Scott Martin Gershin (supervising sound editor, sound designer), Martín Hernández (supervising sound editor, sound designer), Tom Bellfort (supervising dialogue/adr editor), Robert Shoup (additional adr supervisor), Dave McMoyler (supervising foley editor), Christopher Barnett (sound designer), Bryan Bowen (sound designer), Martin Cantwell (sound designer), Alejandro Quevedo (sound designer), Stephen P. Robinson (sound designer), Roland N. Thai (sound designer), Peter Zinda (sound designer), Sergio Diaz (lead dialogue editor), Naiki Rossell (dialogue editor), Paul Conway (adr editor), Tony Currie (adr editor), Sam Southwick (adr editor), David Stanke (sound effects editor), Oliver Tarney (sound effects editor), Vanesa Lorena Tate (sound effects editor), Harry Barnes (foley editor), Dominique Devoucoux (foley editor), Christopher Wilson (foley editor), Nicolas Becker (foley artist), Peter Burgis (foley artist), Andie Derrick (foley artist), James Moriana (foley artist), Jack Stew (foley artist) and Jeffrey Wilhoit (foley artist). 2009 MTV Movie + TV Awards: Nominated: MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for Luke Goss. Nominated: MTV Movie Award for Best Fight Scene for Luke Goss and Ron Perlman. 2009 Online Film & Television Association: Nominated: OFTA Film Award for Best Music, Adapted Song for Christopher Arnold (music and lyrics), David Martin (music and lyrics), Geoff Morrow (music and lyrics), Barry Manilow (performed) for the song "Can't Smile Without You." Nominated: OFTA Film Award for Best Make-Up and Hairstyling for Deborah Jarvis, Diana Choi, Lesley Smith, Mike Elizalde, Norman Cabrera, Roland Blancaflor and Thomas Floutz. Nominated: OFTA Film Award for Best Visual Effects for Adrian De Wet, Eamonn Butler, Lucy Killick and Mike Wassel. 2009 Visual Effects Society Awards: Nominated: Outstanding Visual Effects in an Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture for Adrian De Wet, Eamonn Butler, Lucy Killick and Mike Wassel. Nominated: Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture for Christoph Ammann and Colin McEvoy for the elemental sequence.
Cast: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, John Alexander, James Dodd, Seth MacFarlane (voice), Luke Goss, Anna Walton, Jeffrey Tambor, John Hurt, Brian Steele, Andrew Hefler, Iván Kamarás, Mike Kelly, Jeremy Zimmermann, Santiago Segura, Roy Dotrice, Aidan Cook, Jeanne Mockford, Montse Ribé (Young Hellboy), Ferenc Elek, Alex McSweeney, Justin Pierre, Matthew O'Toole, Jamie Wilson, Clive Llewellyn, Sándor Svigelj, Brian Herring, Pálma Pásztor, Jimmy Kimmel, Tim Flavin, Belinda Henley, Blake Perlman, Matt Rippy, Judit Viktor, Szonja Oroszlán, Michael A. Mehlmann, Todd Williams, Beatrice Zentai, Péter Horkay, Richard Rifkin, Guillermo del Toro (Creature Vocals) (uncredited), Tim Larsen (uncredited), Gavin McKenzie (uncredited) and Julia Papp (uncredited)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Producers: Chris Symes, John Swallow, Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Mike Mignola and Mike Richardson
Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro (screenplay/story) and Mike Mignola (story/comic book)
Composer: Danny Elfman
Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro, A.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: English: 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio,
English: 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround
French: 5.1 DTS-HD Surround
Italian: DTS-HD Surround
German: DTS-HD Surround
Japanese: 5.1 DTS-HD Surround
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Japanese
Running Time: 114 minutes
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Universal Pictures
Andrew's Blu-ray Review: Throughout his career, director Guillermo del Toro has regularly alternated between small, personal projects and big studio pictures. Guillermo del Toro followed his debut feature film with 'CRONOS' (a strange, intimate twist on vampire mythology) with the horror thriller 'MIMIC.' From there on he travelled to Spain for the film 'The Devil's Backbone' and then returned to Hollywood for 'Blade II.' The director's obsessions with dark fairy tales, fantastical monsters, and clockwork mechanical gizmos were a perfect fit for Mike Mignola's cult comic book about a grumpy demon hell spawn with a fondness for candy bars and big guns. The 2004 film adaptation of 'HELLBOY' was witty, inventive, action-packed, and very entertaining.
Unfortunately, the studio SONY found it difficult to market a film in which the hero basically looks like the bastard son of Satan. The picture did only mediocre box office business, but found more of an audience on the inferior DVD format. Cut to a few years later and Guillermo del Toro was riding high on the success of 'Pan's Labyrinth.' A new studio Universal, decided to pick up the 'HELLBOY' rights and capitalise on the director's ascending fortunes, tailoring the promotional campaign for ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY’ almost exclusively around Guillermo del Toro's reputation.
Most of the major players from the original have returned for the sequel, including Ron Perlman as the big red demon, Selma Blair as his hot-tempered girlfriend, and Jeffrey Tambor as their dim-witted boss at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence. Even John Hurt makes a cameo flashback as Hellboy's kindly adopted father. Doug Jones continues in the fish-man suit as Abe Sapien, this time providing the voice himself (David Hyde Pierce performed vocal duties with the first film). Missing entirely is Rupert Evans as Agent Myers, his character dismissed in a single line of dialogue. Newly introduced is by-the-book Agent Johann Krauss [Seth MacFarlane], a vaporous apparition, contained in a walking pressurised suit.
The plot of ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY’ consist of numerous races of mystical creatures, like fairies, trolls, goblins, and more, have been living beneath the human world for millennia, abiding by an ancient truce to stay out of our way. Fed up with this complacency, the exiled Prince Nuada returns to seize his Elven father's throne and reactivate the long-dormant Golden Army, a fearsome force of thousands of indestructible mechanical warriors. To do that, he needs the three pieces of the Golden Crown. The first piece is easily stolen from a human auction house, and the second can be wrested from his father's hands. However, his twin sister Princess Nuala absconds with the final piece to the protection of Hellboy and the instantly-smitten Abe.
As to the film, ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY,’ it has a much grander scale than the first 'HELLBOY' film. Although modestly budgeted by summer blockbuster standards, the film features some astoundingly elaborate production design that would make even Terry Gilliam blush, and countless mind-bending monstrous creations ripped from the deepest recesses of Mike Mignola's and Guillermo del Toro's imaginations. The action scenes are well choreographed and the film has no shortage of visual effects, highlighted by an impressive city street battle between HB and a giant "Elemental" forest god.
Plenty of Guillermo del Toro's visual genius is on display in ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY,’ but the story doesn't support it adequately. The film performed about the same as the first theatrically, not quite earning back its entire budget. As before, it will probably fare better on home video. There's much of interest to watch and savour in the film, but on the whole the picture is frankly a little dull and is certainly not one of the director's stronger works.
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY MUSIC TRACK LIST
SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN’ TO TOWN (Written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie) [Performed by Eddy Arnold]
Violin Sonata No. 9 'Kreutzer' (Written by Ludwig van Beethoven) [Performed by Takako Nishizaki (Violin) and Jenõ Jandó (Piano)]
Autumn from the "Four Seasons" (Written by Antonio Vivaldi) [Performed by Cho-Liang Lin (Violin), Anthony Newman (Harpsicord) International Sejong Soloists]
ALL I WANT TO DO IS ROCK (Written by Francis Nealy) [Performed by Travis]
NEWS INTRO #1 (from ‘Bruce Almighty’) (Written by John Debney) [Performed by John Debney]
NEWS BRIEF (from ‘Hard Copy’) [Written by Harry Garfield and Julian Bratolyubov) [Performed by Harry Garfield and Julian Bratolyubov]
WHY (Written by A. Sanchez, I. Marti, D. Catena and I. Martinez) [Performed by Poet in Process]
NEL CALEYU LA FONTE (Written by Fernando Montes Garcia and Maria Elola Molleda) [Performed by Brenga Astur]
BEAUTIFUL FREAK (Written by Mark Oliver Everett) [Performed by Eels with Butch Norton]
CAN’T SMILE WITHOUT YOU (Written by Christopher Arnold, David Martin and Geoff Morrow) (uncredited) [Performed by Barry Manilow]
NOIR (Written by Ben Isaac) [Performed by Red Is For Fire feat. Terry Oubre]
Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K.622, 2nd movement (uncredited) (Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Wiegenlied: Guten Abend, gute Nacht (uncredited) (Written by Johannes Brahms)
Mars, the Bringer of War (uncredited) From 'The Planets' Suite,Op.32 (Written by Gustav Holst)
Blu-ray Image Quality – Back when SONY produced the first 'HELLBOY' on Blu-ray in 2007, it had razor sharp details and rich colours and was near-reference quality for the Blu-ray format. Universal Pictures release of the sequel is very similar in most regards, if slightly less impressive in direct comparison. The 1080p encoded image transfer is presented in the films theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio, just like the original. The robust colours, including Guillermo del Toro's use of amber hues, vibrant blues, and deep red tones, are reproduced vividly. The contrast range extends to inky blacks, though shadow detail is at times a bit obscure. At its best, the picture has extraordinary sharpness and detail. Close-up shots of HB's skin reveal exemplary texture. However, image clarity is not always consistent. Medium and wide shots are generally less impressive and look a little filtered. The film also has an abundance of CGI effects that are disappointingly soft and blurry for a film of this budget, especially the Golden Army robots themselves. Make no mistake 'HELLBOY: The Golden Army' is a fine-looking Blu-ray disc. It just doesn't quite hit the same heights as its predecessor. I re-watched the original 'HELLBOY' immediately afterwards and found it noticeably sharper and more consistent in appearance. On the other hand, the sequel has no problems with colour banding, which is an improvement in its favour.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – The 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, it might seem deserving of our highest possible score. Certainly, the sound mix has hyper-aggressive surround activity from all four discrete rear channels and some punishing bass. Sound effects are sharply recorded and dialogue is always perfectly intelligible. But that doesn't really tell the whole story. It's a very good audio track, but something is missing. The soundtrack starts loud and just gets louder as it goes but unlike the outstanding sound design of Guillermo del Toro's 'Pan's Labyrinth,' but 'HELLBOY: The Golden Army' lacks some finesse. The mix is all about power, with little room for subtlety or nuance. The surprisingly bland score by Danny Elfman rarely exhibits much warmth. While the channels throb almost constantly, the low end is not very refined. Perhaps most distractingly, the dubbing is poorly integrated into the sound mix. Lip sync may be adequate, but voices sound very disconnected from the visuals. Overall ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY’ has a really excellent good audio soundtrack that most viewers will find very satisfying.
Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Audio Commentary with Director Guillermo del Toro: The director is very well versed in the art of the audio commentary. Guillermo del Toro delivers an intelligent, engaging discussion of his artistic intentions, his influences, his fetishes, and the themes and symbolism in the film. Guillermo del Toro discusses the lack of performance at the box office with the previous film ‘HELLBOY,’ but nevertheless he received the green-light to direct this sequel, this time from a different studio. He goes on to discuss artistic decisions that were made in light of the film's limited budget. Guillermo del Toro talks about the films that influenced his visions, his "fetishes" for gears, exotic locations, and creatures, the film's colour palette, and so much more. This audio commentary by Guillermo del Toro is a very good easy listen, with lots of fascinating information and in doing so, Guillermo del Toro is highly engaging, so I would say that all fans of Guillermo del Toro will want to check this feature out. Overall, this audio commentary is a well worth listen, and Guillermo del Toro imparts some very interesting in-depth aspects about this film and what he wanted to achieve for the cinema going public.
Audio Commentary with Cast Members Jeffrey Tambor, Selma Blair and Luke Goss: In stark contrast to the director's audio commentary, this is very superficial vacuous chat between members of the supporting cast. Ron Perlman is conspicuously absent. Selma Blair is particularly very annoying and actually starts the audio track by recommending that viewers listen to Guillermo del Toro's commentary instead. I wholeheartedly and totally agree. So all in all, this was a complete waste of time and not worth listening to, as they are all into themselves and do not care a tosh towards the customers who bought this SteelBook Blu-ray disc.
Special Feature: Comic Book Builder: Create your own ‘HELLBOY II' comic book! Just select your favourite frames from the film. The Comic Book Builder will take the image and transform it into comic book art form. Add text from a list of ‘HELLBOY II' phrases, select cover, and BLAM! Your comic is complete. This is a well worth view.
U-Control: I found Universal Pictures U-Control interface very irritating. In this one, you can watch the film with four possible options: pop-up Concept Art, a picture-in-picture scene.
BONUS: Beautiful designed Artwork inside the Limited Edition SteelBook case.
Finally, ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY’ is a very entertaining film that accomplishes everything a good sequel requires, especially for fans of director Guillermo del Toro. It enhances the characters on a psychological level really well, and introduces one or two new primaries, which features bigger and bolder sets, and more intense action, and also introduces a formidable opponent for the heroes to battle. Most importantly, the film sees the return of director Guillermo del Toro, whose impressive vision and eye-catching directorial style once again lend vigour, vitality, beauty, and grace of the HELLBOY film franchise. It should come as no surprise that Universal Pictures Blu-ray release of ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY’ is phenomenal. With incredible detaile and film-like transfer that shows just what Blu-ray video is capable of presenting, and the 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track is awesome. ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY’ is a fine representation of what Blu-ray is all about. Fans of the film and its director will not be disappointed and home theatre enthusiasts looking to add the latest and greatest in image and audio presentations to their collections need pick this one up immediately. ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY’ is of course a great companion to the first ‘HELLBOY' Limited Edition SteelBook Blu-ray release and is totally brilliant and it has gone pride of place in my ever increasing Limited Edition SteelBook Blu-ray Collections. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
