The movie wasn’t terrible, but neither was it anywhere near what del Toro is capable of. There were a lot of hackneyed tropes. There was the “hot chick who can’t do anything”. There was the “nerd and hot chick fall in love just because”. There was, as you pointed out, the “I can’t tell him I’m pregnant”. And of course the “give him something to live for” that follows on. There was the fake german. The angry young prince murdering his dad in a for-or-against-me moment. And the dad who can’t see it coming. The stickler-for-paperwork finally rebels. In troll alley, there was even the Big Pointless Grinding Machine that you just know is going to have a bad guy stuffed into it as soon as you see it. One of my friends actually fell asleep during the movie.

The elf prince was a listless actor with no grace of movement – he should have been replaced with a dancer. The elf princess was the classic helpless chick who is only a prize in the eyes of the story (see also Princess Bride). Why can’t we have more Ellen Ripleys in movies? All the supporting characters had the depth of the paper they were written on.

It’s a run-of-the-mill movie, neither good nor bad. Pity it wasn’t up to del Toro’s best.

Mhmf. I agree with your point about troll alley- But that’s not the elves natural woodland, that’s the whole mishmash of all the fairy creatures hanging on the by the fingernails to the hiding places they have left. I think a thriving elf civ would look completely different, all medievally and ye olde englande woodland based.

The contrast between the forest energy of the elves monster and NYC brought it out quite well though, I thought- the massive contrasts between the specie and how coexistence was out of the question.

Either way, the film was a joy to watch- Toro’s weirdness and impressive set pieces, especially the rock opening to the abandoned city and the cinematography of the four, finally unified characters coming over the hill, really made it for me.

@Mack: Yes, you are right. Initially I had that worded differently. The gist of it was that I wanted to see *more* of this theme. I wanted it explored in more depth. There is a little bit of that there, yes. But it is mostly conveyed through what prince Nuada says and not exactly shown.

For example, during the throne room scene you do feel this notion that these people are fading away. Then we enter the Troll Market and we see this thriving economy and all these fairies well adjusted to life in the big cities. It sort of took the sting out of the whole “fading away” theme showing that they can thrive even in the most densely populated urban areas.

Same with the abandoned city. Initially I was like ohh! An abandoned city. This is because they are fading away! And two seconds later the legless goblin explains that the city was abandoned due to a curse that came to the city with the golden Army.

He could have just said something about there not being enough of Fey fold in the world to populate this city anymore. Or something like that. But no – it was cursed, and everyone moved out. Meh…

Maybe I’m to harsh on this movie. I get like that when something does not live up to my expectations. :P

Oh cmon

“like having the fairy society in a decline, loosing ground to human expansion, their magic and their culture slowly fading away into oblivion.”

The whole point of this movie, aside from Hellboy and Abes bromances, was to show the elf society losing ground to the humans. It’s repeated Over and Over and Over that the elf dudes are going to die off and fade away. The final line of the main elf badass is “We shall die and the world will be poorer for it”, same with the giant green forest monster, “This is the last one left in existence blah blah blah”, you couldn’t escape the whole Omgz we’re Killing Environments that was implied in this movie through the elf thing.

“In The Golden Army he reverts to a common thug, and his rage meter is dialed all the way up to 11. He is reckless, self destructive and seems to thrive on conflict.”

Totally disagree. He gets his rage meter up because of the frustrations of holding together a relationship with Liz in what is a seriously high pressure job, as well as the world outside completely Not Getting Him. Case and Point: the giant plant monster. He takes serious time in the movie to weigh up the pros and cons of taking it’s life, and the necessity of sending one of the Elves last heritages and natural miracles to hell in order to save human life. Had he been the thug you describe, he would have wasted it without a second thought.

Sure, hellboy gets seriously pissed in this movie- But the movie takes great pains to explain why he’s like that, and to fill in his character behind the action. Note the TVs calling him and Liz “A federally funded threat to traditional marriage”, the Beer/Singalong scene with Abe, the jokes at the Diver suits germans expense as Nazi reference, harbouring an animosity explained in the first movie/comics.

No offense intended, but it seems to me like you’ve watched this movie without certain scenes, or without trying to understand the character developement. I thought this movie was actaully far better for character developement than the first, and the annoying, boy scout CIA guy in the first one bugged the living crap out of me.

I do agree on the ramping up of Toro’s weird characters though – They’re awesome.

There are a few exceptions to that rule. Star Wars Episodes 5 and 6 were good sequels. The Rocky movies (except 5 and the most recent one) were good. Terminator 2 was just as good as the first. But generally speaking you are correct; almost every sequel sucks.

[quote post=”2710″]Oops, looks like I tried using some code again . . . stupid BBCode . . .[/quote]

Well, I don’t really use BBCode here. Just a few of basic HTML tags that are listed above the comment box. That and some replacement magic for inserting quotes into the comments.

Oh, and I was never a big Trek fan so I haven’t actually seen ST6.

One thing I always disliked about the series is how it systematically seeks to Flanderize every single race to the point of exaggeration.

Like the fact that all Klingons are humorless honorable warriors. All Ferengi and greedy merchants, and etc. I mean, one would think that these huge societies would have at lest some variety. There must be some pacifist Klingons out there, or ascetic Ferengi who do not care about money and/or worldly possessions.

Oops, looks like I tried using some code again . . . stupid BBCode . . .

I really liked ST6. ST:TNG was running a similar story line about the Klingon history when ST6 was released in theaters. Good stuff.

The even numbered Star Trek movies are also an exception to the rule.

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