2008 November | So Very Dark

Every once in a while, you just want to watch a movie that has absolutely no redeeming qualities.

Okay, that is less than true. Every once in a while, you END up watching a movie that has absolutely no redeeming qualities. And then you tell everyone else how crappy they were.

Well…buckle up.

Now, I love super hero movies as much as the next geek-girl, especially the type that have been largely released recently–the new Batman, Spiderman and Ironman movies, for example, are awesome and beautiful and I have watched them at least a couple times each.

So, a few years ago, when Hellboy came out, I excitedly lined up to get my fill of super-natural action goodness. I left…underwhelmed. The movie seemed lacking in many ways.

Recently, however, I have heard enough people tout the awesomeness of both Hellboy and it’s sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army (heck, I heard that some girls were turning their backs on Jareth, the Goblin King for Prince what’s-his-name), that earlier this week, I decided to give the first a second shot to see if I was short-sighted, and see if the excitement around number two was for warrented.

I’m sorry people…you may hate me for saying this, excommunicate me from the hallowed halls of geekdom, threaten to take away my comic collection…but the Hellboy franchise is not worth the time it takes to watch it. The movies are barely covered in enough plot to go out in public without getting arrested, peopled with DRASTICALLY one-dimentional characters who’s actions are obviously based upon sudden whims of the writers rather than any thought or story development. The majority of screen-time is taken up with long action sequences that generally consist of Hellboy getting thrown through many brick and stone walls before finally beating his opponent to death with his fist, interspersed with ‘witty’ one-liners. (In case you didn’t catch on, I put quotation marks around the word ‘witty’ to imply that it might not be quite the right line for the job.) The protagonist is a blockheaded jock who solves his problems by hitting them or shooting them and stalks his sort-of ex-girlfriend when she’s out on a sort-of date with someone else.

The second movie simply takes all the crappy things from the first movie and then adds some crap on top. No, really. HB is still a cheap-beer swilling, cat-collecting imbicile, but he has gotten back together with his pyro girlfriend…but their relationship has serious problems that neither of them seem mature enough to handle. Throw into the mix an ‘elf’ prince who wants to raise a long-burried anamatronic army to destroy the humans for forgetting to take care of the earth. He claims to be all about the earth, but I really think he was just saying that to get the cute hippy chicks…his actions are so contradictory that I don’t think even he knew what he wanted. You could almost hear his character crying behind the lack of plot. Meanwhile, one of Hellboy’s comrades in arms falls deeply and irrivocably in love with the elf Prince’s twin sister…in like, a day.

I’ll stop there, in the interest of spoilers…though you should really beg me to give away the plot so you don’t for one second think you have to watch this shallow, vacant excuse for a super-hero movie. Honestly I’m just stopping because I could rant so much more about these movies…and I have OTHER movies to rant about, so I needed to stop somewhere!

Moving on…this evening I found myself in a chick-flick kind of mood and needing to watch something cute and romantic in which a spunky heroine has some stuff happen while she wears pretty clothes and eventually falls in love, has a misunderstanding, learns a lesson and gets her guy. Debra Messing’s 2005 The Wedding Date–the story of a girl who hires a male escort for her sister’s wedding so she won’t show up alone to an event her ex-fiance will be at–looked like it would fit the bill…and what can I say? I like the neurotic red-head.

The first glimpse of Messing was a sign of bad things to come, as her usual vibrant curls had been dowdied into a stiff, straight style that doesn’t fit her at all. Even in the promotional poster they gave her a bit of wave, because she’s a curly red-head and that’s just the way it is. I don’t know what they were thinking.

<– bad <–good

Anyway, the movie took an upswing after that, breaking into a montage of yellow-page add circling and rushed packing to the Corr’s perky chick-flick perfect song, Breathless.

Unfortunately, it went back downhill after that: thin plot, characters with no obvious chemistry or real signs of actually liking each other or being on the same wavelength apparently developing feelings, stupid fights with nebulis basises being resolved after shoving each other around a dance-floor a few times, the protagonist being such an issue-y drama-queen that I wanted to tell the love interest that he was better off without her…

And then, at the end of the movie, the bought man tells Messing that he ‘would rather spend his time fighting with her than making love with anyone else.’ Or something like that. And they live happily ever after.

Now, I think that the people who wrote the end forgot to read the whole rest of the movie–you know the part where the two characters have known each other for about TWO DAYS? So, this escort, who originally comes across as very professional and business-like, a man who’s JOB it is to take women on dates and act like he adores them without getting emotionally involved, totally forgets all that and falls in love NOT with someone he has a long-standing friendship with, but with an issue-y girl he just met. He then quits his job (of course…he couldn’t exactly keep hooking…) but…then what? The guy has a degree in Comparative Literature! I didn’t buy it and this movie didn’t make me tear up or cheer aloud for the heroine to ‘go get her man!’ even once.

Finally….

After above mentioned dreck, I decided that it was pointless action and explosions. I would say I did it partially out of sympathy for Briggs sitting through the bad chick movie with me, but he doesn’t want his name in any way associate with my decision. Which is fair.

You see…I’ve had this movie for a while, and I thought it was just…time. That’s right….it was:

Now I won’t lie…this movie was DREADFUL…but I honestly feel that it was so bad that it sort of wrapped around and landed on awesome. It was full of so many horrible plot holes and SERIOUS innacuracies that marveling over them entertained me as much as the movie itself. And a snake bit a guy’s winkie while he was peeing. At which point I felt that it was my civic duty to yell out ‘Trouser Snake!’

Anyway, I’m not even going to begin listing all the things wrong with this movie…I’d be here all night. I’m also not going to bother to synopsize the story–the title tells you all you need to know. There are snakes, they are on a plane and Samuel L. Jackson is there.

BUT.

If you actually DO like the occasional super-cheesy bad movie, I super-recommend this. I think I loved it a little, because it went so far BEYOND bad and in such an entertaining way. Just do not try to EVER apply ANYTHING they claim is true and scientific in this movie to the real world.

Also, while looking for the SoaP poster, I found these, which amused me.