I watch a fair number of movies on DVD, and am always on the look out for films that have a visual style that is distinctive and compelling. Guillermo del Toro’s newest film, "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is a stunning film at least visually. The cinematography in this film is distinctive, with a great color palette, and an otherworldly feel that doesn’t seem gratuitous or contrived. I think it is more visually compelling than "Iron Man", "The Dark Knight" or just about any other movie I’ve seen so far this year.
The film itself is well done, as big hero films go. Ron Perlman, who plays Hellboy is quite good, as are Selma Blair and the rest of the cast (which includes Jeffrey Tambor and John Hurt, among others). Best of all, you don’t really have to see the first "Hellboy" movie to have this one make sense, though it helps.
I haven’t yet bought a Blu-ray player, but when I do (sometime between now and the end of the year), this will certainly be one of the films I buy in that format.
del Toro is shaping up to be a first-class director, with a very distinctive vision. I think of him as a Latin Tim Burton. del Toro is currently working on a 2 movie treatment of "The Hobbit", produced by Peter Jackson (who did the Lord of the Rings Trilogy). I can’t wait to see what he does with Tolkien…