W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY was fun, but not such a great story. The biggest cool thing is the art direction. The creature design, the sets, the costumes -- gorgeous to creepy. But ultra-fascinating! It was funny how there were so many shots of eyes -- looking longingly or lovingly -- and they were non-human. Big preponderance of orange or amber colored eyes too. And Abe Sapien, who I loved in the first one, has even more character development in this. His face is so fishlike yet is played so well by Doug Jones that he comes off as an endearing and more butch version of Niles Crain.

Of course, Ron Perlman as HellBoy, or "Red" as they call him, is another awesome characterization. His personality, his romantic immaturity, his wishing for acceptance by humankind, all wonderful. And Perlman pulls it off behind 20 lbs of makeup, sawed off horns and red body paint. He claimed his torso musculature was all real too.

But the story sort of misfires. The problems of the parapsychology group are described awkwardly -- like, there's no way they can be working for the government on these jobs AND be totally secret. They're going into places where the media and crowds are already standing and staring. And getting a new boss? Their ineffective old boss stays there and bumbles around so you can't see that life has changed for them much. Plus the new boss is a confusing character who's voiced in overdone Nazi by the much-loathed Seth McFarlane. Then Hellboy and his sweetie start off in full fight mode, and we don't see shades of relationships. He's obviously adoring her but he's too awful and uncouth to live with -- that never gets a resolution, new info just comes in.

The more compelling emotional story is that of the royal elf twins. They're magically connected, and sometimes it seems even sexual. It's a problem for a script to make the most heartbreak come from the bad guys...

But it's Guillermo del Toro, so the directon and visuals make it worth a movie ticket. It's No.1 at the box office right now, which proves it!

Saw MAMMA MIA today -- in an almost full theater! And the line to get in was also really long! And THIS was on the opening weekend of THE DARK KNIGHT --! There cannot be two more different movies to get buzz on the same opening day, I say, as a person who's only watched endless TV coverage of The Demise of Heath Ledger and not the real Batman movie yet...

Meryl Streep, as the multiply award-winning actress that she is, does a really good job as Donna, the main character. I'm reminded of a play in the park she did 20 years ago where she wore a romper and long hair and played Alice in Wonderland. She's supposed to be an ex-hippie trying to run a broken-down hotel on a beautiful but remote Greek isle. She's slim and has lots of lovely energy, and while not the most wonderful singer, can belt out a song when she has to. Trivia on IMDB says she did "The Winner Takes All" on her first pass. Amanda Seyfried as the irrepressible and affianced daughter Sophie is a magical creature, with her big blue eyes, gorgeous glowing complexion and rivers of blonde curls. And she can sing! I've seen her in VERONICA MARS and BIG LOVE, and had no idea! She spends half the movie in a swimsuit, and she's just perfection.

Plus, Colin Firth! Any movie with the once and always Mr. Darcy is worth seeing just for him, in my book. And he acquitted himself well with the singing and guitar strumming. All the 3 guys were good sports about the singing and, as needed, dressing up in 70s glamour wear. Stellan Skarsgard does fine, but poor Pierce Brosnan sings like a bear who discovered English. Poor guy, and he has several solos.

But the big flaw -- and I cannot stress this strongly enough -- is, OMG, it's ALL ABBA MUSIC! That stuff REEKS! There's no lyric too banal, no emotion too shallow, no melodic line too derivative! I thought the beautiful Greek scenery* and fine actors would offset the ABBA stuff (like it couldn't in the plays; I've turned down going to the musical on Broadway and on the London stage, as well as traveling shows). It didn't; it ruined the movie for me. Awful sucky songs. Just awful. And once they started one, they didn't use a few stanzas for color. No, we had the whole fricking lame-ass song to listen to. In successful musicals, the song portions are where emotions are revealed or let loose. In this story, which was fun and schlocky but had some emotional power, no, the music stopped all the progress and created anti-emotion moments. Weird.

There was another weird development with Colin's character and his awakening. By the end, he was shirtless, wet and embracing a beautiful Greek man. But in earlier scenes, that same Greek man had a weird dark shadow across him to fade him into the background. Colin refers to Donna as the first and last woman he ever loved, and then he minces on about his two doggies... I think there was a coming-out that they decided to put back into the closet or something. It sure made for awkward story stuff at the end...

*A friend from work and I are thinking of joining a 12-day cruise in the Mediterranean in October 2009 that my friend Janine put together. Man, if swimming is that great around a Greek isle, I'm interested!