Current mood:	chipper
Entry tags:	hellboy ii, movie reviews, wall-e, wanted

I'm Actually Happy This Week...
Greetings, citizens... [/Space Ghost impersonation]

I come to you from the land of the half-sane and highly-entertained. Hmm, I must be in a good mood because the last sentence rhymed.

Anyhoo, let's start with the top reason I'm giddy at the moment: The Avatar. Poor Zuko, he finally got a break although Katara still hates his guts since the Ba Sing Se incident. And the hour-long episode this evening made me feel both happy and sad, Mai finally let Zuko have it...and yet, Azula paid the price. Though now it begs the question: Who will Zuko hook up with? Katara and Mai are both pretty pissed at him right now, and you guys know nothing is worse than having two women mad at you.

We'll find out by the end of this week...and I simply love Mai. ^-^

On to more good stuff. I gave Reservation Rewards a kick in the gonads because the bank has returned my money and canceled the vulture's claim to my funds. Sweet! Now, that's one less thing to worry about. *dances*

Work is going fairly well, although my sanity is fleeting and I'll probably have pronounced gray hairs by the end of the year. I've also managed to get into an "e-mail war" with a company rep, but then again nothing worth doing is ever easy, right? All I know is, my boss told me to write the new procedure for a five-year long fiasco...and I delivered. And I know it's only a matter of time before the tears start, but I don't care -- they weren't doing right in the first place.

I have three movie reviews for you all. The list includes the promised Wall-E, but also two other movies that I saw this Monday: Hellboy II and Wanted.

---

To be honest, Wall-E is actually one of the darker Disney movies -- much in the same fashion as the original Bambi when the title character lost his mother. It was paired with a short, which I missed but know involved a rabbit (Alec Kazam) and a magician. Anyway, the main feature occurs 700 years in the future, when mankind has abandoned Earth and the robots left behind for clean up have all broken down, save one -- the title character.

Wall-E is pretty much a good imitation of Short Circuit (movie from the 1980s), but computer-generated, partially in outer space and with a female robot (E.V.E.) as the love interest. E.V.E. looked like she could have been a product from Apple -- glossy, white finish and a hidden weapon capable of blowing a hole in an abandoned tanker.

Of course the title character can't help but falling in love and his ultimate goal was to hold her hand. *slides off chair* No, not even kiss (they didn't even have lips), but just hold her hand. Still, I thought it was adorable and I can relate, because sometimes all we need is that minor acknowledgment. But the robots weren't the only characters in the movie, despite being the main characters.

After 700 years in space, humans have degenerated into infantile creatures barely capable of walking. Only four humans had significant parts, but they were so minor it frightened me...and that's when it hit me just where this movie was aimed. Technology had overtaken everything to the point that simple tasks were laborious and the captain's job had degenerated to a breakfast commercial.

It's hard to explain the mental angle without completely giving away the plot, but let's just say that the autopilot was the one really in charge and as a result we were little more than talking slugs. Another irony is AUTO, the autopilot of the ark mankind used to escape Earth, was played by an Apple MacIn Talk speech program...so I suppose this movie truly does qualify as an underlying ad for Apple products. *shrugs*

Anyway, I give this three out of five stars. It wasn't the best Disney movie I've ever seen, but it was good enough to make me think. The graphics are great, but the story could have been a little more interesting...though it did make me think. I suppose this is only proof that it doesn't matter how good something looks, the story is the most important part of the film.

---

---

Our favorite son of Darkness returns, but a few things have changed since the end of the first movie and the beginning of this one. The most notable of which is the absence of John Myers, which was caused by Hellboy...though exactly why we have no idea.

There's a brief flashback to Hellboy when he was just a lad and the Professor was still alive. It is during this recollection that the premise of the story comes to light and we learn that the Golden Army was commissioned by elves to defend themselves from mankind. After the elf king had a change of heart, the army was put into storage and his son went into exile. Hmm, almost sounds like a rejected chapter from the Lord of the Rings books, doesn't it?

Anyway, after this explanation we fast forward to present day where Liz and our red hero have been having their respective problems as a couple. Thankfully, Abe gets more time and development as a character in this movie...they even gave him a love interest. It was pretty cute and hilarious to watch Hellboy and Abe fall apart over a six pack, singing drunkenly at the top of their lungs and gills.

A new character is Johann Krauss and Seth MacFarlane is his VA; same guy that plays Peter, Stewie and Brian Griffin on Family Guy. So to give you a good idea of this character, imagine Ludwig von Drake from Disney shorts and DuckTales as a disembodied smoke cloud stuck in a glass jar. It was hilarious, even as he beat Hellboy's butt in the locker room before floating off.

It wasn't too bad, though I felt bad for Abe. I almost thought he had a girlfriend and then... *sigh* Anyway, Hellboy gets a massive surprise at the movie's end and there's enough leeway for another sequel. Huzzah. D:

Three and a half out of five stars. Drunken singing and disembodied German scientist save the movie.

---

---

As far as I'm concerned, Wanted was the true crown jewel movie out of the three. Not just because of action, because technically all three movies count as action movies by content alone. But Wanted has the additional benefit of starting from a place that the average person can relate to -- a horrible job, a cheating significant other, and the promise of more of the same the next day.

But then Wanted throws out the question: What happens when a tragedy of insane proportions is the best thing that ever happened to you?

Now I love Morgan Freeman, in fact, that was the primary reason I went to see this movie. But after watching this clusterfuck of visual and plot, I loved pretty much everything the movie brought to the table. It was like being smacked in the back of the head with a "Look at me!" sign of sheer awesome and violence.

This movie is loosely based on the comic miniseries of the same name; unfortunately, I can't tell you just how loose it is because I haven't had the pleasure of reading the comic, but I am aware that the comic focuses on a league of super villainous assassins in a hero-less world as opposed to elitist assassins killing for the sake of mankind. A true comic-to-movie film would not only have carried an NC-17 rating, but probably wouldn't have been allowed to be shown in many countries.

If that alone doesn't pique your interest in seeing the film, the last line of the film literally sent shivers up my spine. How often does a movie end with the lead character turning to look at the audience and saying "What the f**k have you done lately?" Did you just get a chill? I got a chill...and I'm going to see it again after the Dark Knight this weekend.

I loved this movie, though I think it's sad when you're so used to living a certain way you'd rather die than see it compromised. But the realization is what makes us human and the most invincible person all the more fragile because of it. Four and a half stars out of five.

---