Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

"Dr. Manning, suck my ectoplasmic schwanztucker!"

It’s unusual to see the combination of auteur director and a Hollywood comic book blockbuster, but the first Hellboy film gave us that with Guillermo Del Toro. Now, though, we have a sequel, without anything like the need for exposition, and it feels as though Del Toro has been released by the success of the previous film from the studio’s constraints and can truly put his stamp on the film.

This is clear from the start, with a John Hurt-narrated flashback from what looks rather like Middle Earth is done in the style of a Tool video, and is the first of the film’s countless visual triumphs, ranging from “tooth fairies” to a psychopathic beanstalk. All this is sufficiently done with sufficient awesomeness that you barely notice the main baddie is played by... Luke Goss from Bros. Yes indeed.

It’s not all visual awesomeness, though; solid plotting, superb characterisation and splendid central performances from Ron Perlman and Selma Blair are also essential ingredients as, bizarrely, is the comedy German accent provided by none other than Seth MacFarlane. Similarly awesome is the psychogeography in which, beneath the surface of New York's boroughs, there lurk troll markets and other such things. This evokes Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, China Mieville and, indeed, points towards Doctor Who's Face the Raven but, more to the point, is awesome to see being handled by Del Toro.

There's a moral here; be brave, get a good director and let them do whatever the hell they want.

Hellboy (2004)

"Plus, you're nine. You're not old enough to be giving me advice!"

I cannot applaud highly enough the excellent decision to give a big Hollywood comic book blockbuster like Hellboy to art film maestro Guillermo Del Toro to direct; in his hands the film looks gorgeous, atmospheric, stylised, perfect. So much so, in fact, that it threatens to elevate a somewhat so-so script into excellence.

The basic concept isn't very original beyond the character of Hellboy himself: occult Nazis are all very Indiana Jones while the monsters look suspiciously Lovecraftian. Nor is the concept of a secret government agency gratifyingly original and, indeed, Professor Broom and his super powered team of mutants look awfully like the X-Men. But the story, and characters, are nevertheless worth following.

You don't need you to tell me how magnificent John Hurt is, but Ron Peelman is also magnificent, and the cast as a whole has nary a weak link. And the ending is particularly effective, as Myers fulfils his destiny as the virtuous Gakahad-type hero while Hellboy proves that not only can he use his free will to be a hero in spite of being a demon, but also gets the girl.

This film hasn't got an original bone in its body. But dammit, it's fun.

Cruel Intentions (1999)

“You can put it anywhere!”

This is a first; a film which my girlfriend persuaded me to blog in the hope that I‘d slag it off. She hates it. Yes, it’s partly her intense dislike of Sarah Michelle Gellar, but it’s also the slowness, dullness and, yes, poshness of all the characters. This is a modern update of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and all the rich New York protagonists are quite as obnoxious as any aristocrat from pre-revolutionary France.

There’s an awkward tension pervading the film, in fact; the plot is adapted from a play written in the 1780s, and the intricate structure of the storyline very much feels like it. This fits very awkwardness with the modernity of the setting, the characters and the social mores./It’s well-executed, but Les Liaisons Dangereuses doesn’t fit well with the modern high school movie. The film is not bad, but it’s hard to admire, and easy to mock. I’m reminded of Not Another High School Movie and its piss take of the lesbian kiss scene- a scene which, incidentally, makes both myself and my bisexual girlfriend go “Euuurgh!”.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is good, as always, although one note, as always. She’s a good actress, but not very likeable. Ryan Philippe is… meh. Reese Witherspoon is really rather good, admittedly. But perhaps it’s not the performances; none of the characters are remotely likeable. They’re all arseholes. Kathryn and Sebastian are cruel and arrogant, Cecile is self-centred, while Annette, for all her self-proclaimed “morals”, thinks relationships matter so little that we needn’t bother finding out whether we’re sexually compatible with each other before getting married.

Admittedly, the direction is good. The oddly British indie soundtrack (Placebo during the opening titles, the Verve’s overrated Bittersweet Symphony, and Blur’s Coffee and TV during the lesbian kiss- interesting choice) is ok too. But the whole thing is hard to take seriously, with so many sex scenes which need to be filmed at weird camera angles to avoid showing too much. And this is set in a world of privilege with which it’s hard to identify. Oh, and the late ‘90s were a fashion wasteland, but you knew that.

This isn’t an awful film, but it isn’t essential either. I’m not going to disappoint my girlfriend: Cruel Intentions is kind of meh.