Now, to start – this movie was pretty good. The characters and relationships were strong well-defined; the plot was creative and immersive; and the visual effects were all good – although that really wasn’t unexpected. And finally, to get into the plot summary – yes, as with all my movie reviews, this contains spoilers. Don’t read them if you won’t want to spoil the movie.

When the movie starts, we see a little back story – how Hellboy came to be a member of the human world, things like that. Most notably, a scene from his childhood, where his father figure, Professor Trevor ‘Broom’ Bruttenholm (John Hurt) tells the young Hellboy (Montse Ribé) the story of the Golden Army.

This story says that, when the world was still young, all creatures lived together, in harmony – demons, elves, goblins, and humans. The problem was, man was created with a hole in his heart that no manner of possession or power could fill – greed. As a result, the humans initiated a long, painful war between themselves and the other races. Countless lives were taken – until finally, the goblins came to the king of the elves with a proposal. They could create an unstoppable army – seventy times seventy (4900 for my less math-inclined readers) indestructible metal soldiers, forged of gold.

The elf king accepted their offer; and so they created the army, and along with it a crown. A crown which gave the wearer the power to command the army with complete obedience, with one exception; if anybody were to challenge the wearer’s authority, the challenge must be met, and the winner would gain the right to bear the crown.

So the king puts on the crown and, unchallenged, commands the Golden Army to destroy the human combatants. He watches in horror as the remorseless soldiers slaughter their challengers; and, once the war was over, he split the crown into three parts; two stayed with the elves, while one went with the humans.

Fast forward to today. We come into the elven Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) practicing his technique with his weapon, a short bladed pole that extends to a full spear at his will, in a dry sewer chamber. He is obviously incredibly skilled. Then his friend Wink (operated by Brian Steele) – a troll, I believe – walks in. Nuada, indicating two large boxes, tells Wink about how he “just bought them” and he “hasn’t fed them yet”. Then he tells Wink that “he’ll go up first, and to follow him quietly” – and the camera pans upward through a vertical sewer tunnel and a manhole.

Now, we cut over to an auction of precious art – a couple items are sold for obscene amounts of money, then the piece of the crown (whose origin is unknown, according to the auctioneer) goes up for sale. The lights flicker out and the computer screens all turn to static; the auctioneer says to remain calm, as the power outage is most likely only temporary. But then the Prince walks in, along with Wink, who is carrying those two boxes from before.

Nuada informs everybody that he will be taking the crown piece; and so he does. Then he tells them all that they are about to be reminded why they once feared the dark – and he opens the boxes, freeing whatever is inside – all we can tell is that there are a large number of small creatures in there. Then, the screen goes dark and we simply hear screaming.

And now, cut over to our introduction with the main character – Hellboy, referred to by other characters mainly as Red (and played by Ron Perlman). Red is an agent in a top-secret government bureau devoted to keeping the paranormal under control, and a secret from the general public. However, he doesn’t like being kept a secret – and his supervisor, Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor), does not like it – but he’s not a very strong-willed guy.

So one of the other agents, and Red’s buddy, Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), leads Tom down to the apartment that Red shares with his girlfriend, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) – and they find Red being thrown out (literally) by Liz. Red tells Abe and Tom to be careful, that Liz is “on fire” – and when Red goes back inside, that turns out to be quite true. Apparently, Liz is a pyromancer.

And apparently, what they were arguing about was, basically, Red – his ridiculous number of cats; his cleaning habits, or lack thereof; his attitude towards, well, everything. Then, when Tom starts trying to talk to Red about how he needs to stop getting “on-camera” time in the general public, Red basically ignores him; this works for Red because Tom is afraid of him.

However, as it turns out, Tom also came to brief them on a situation they have to go clean up – the auction. He informs them of what the bureau does know, which isn’t very much, and they move out to go take care of it. Tom even bribes Red with Cuban cigars to remain incognito. When the scene transitions over to the city street, we see Tom stating to the press that there was a “gas bubble”, and that FBI agents under his command are inside taking care of the situation.

While inside, we learn that the little creatures are known as tooth fairies – they feed primarily on calcium, and all they really do is eat, then eat some more. Eventually, they find a couple of the creatures, and one of the human agents mentions how it’s cute, as it sits there eating a tooth that it got from one of the people at the auction – that it killed.

Then all Hell breaks loose. The little fuckers start swarming out of the walls; they kill the two or three human agents that are on the mission. Liz starts doing her pyromancy thing, and Red moves toward a window – which she specifically says to stay away from, but he doesn’t. Then she causes an explosion – literally – which kills all the little demons and blows Red out the window.

Naturally, the press starts freaking out – asking all sorts of questions, etc. Long story short, they get back to the bureau compound…thing, and Tom starts giving him a lecture. Naturally, Red really isn’t listening, so Tom tells him he brought in a new superior for Red – a German specialist named Johann Krauss (played by James Dodd and John Alexander, with voice by Seth MacFarlane – yes, the guy who makes Family Guy and American Dad, check out his IMDB page). Meanwhile, Abe and Liz are talking about Red – and, when Abe touches Liz’s stomach, he finds out that she’s pregnant – which is also news to her. This is a recurring issue throughout the movie, but Red doesn’t find out until much, much later.

Krauss is a highly skilled, highly regimented agent, who “really understands the chain of command”, according to Tom. And, as we find Krauss is actually a ghost – contained in a mechanical suit. Naturally, Krauss and Red butt heads quite a bit – Krauss does everything very by-the-book, while Red is basically the epitome of unorthodox – they’re polar opposites. Anyway, they have a meeting, and Krauss informs them all that they need to find the troll market, something that they all say has never been done, and Krauss responds that that is because they haven’t been teamed with him. They also mention that the symbol on the box is the elven royal seal – but it’s only used in times of war.

At some point during all this (I can’t recall exactly when) the scene cuts over to the elven royal chamber, where Prince Nuada is (against his will) stripped of his weapon by the Chamberlain (also played by Doug Jones) – it is not until his sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) insists that he gives it up that he finally does. Then, he enters the chamber – and goes before King Balor (Roy Dotrice) and their council, stating that they should wage war on the humans, to reclaim the world that is rightfully theirs. The king is surprised, stating that this would be breaking an ancient treaty between all the races; but the prince says that, in keeping the outside world to themselves, the humans themselves are breaking the treaty.

King Balor asks Nuada if this is truly how he feels, to which he responds that it is. Both the king and Princess Nuala are saddened, as the king is forced to sentence Nuada to death for this. Nuada asks his sister if he agrees with her king’s decision, and she says that she does. So the guards attempt to subdue Nuada, but fail – he takes a sword from one and uses it to fight until he steals another sword, then he brings them all down in a very impressive display of dual-wielding. Until, finally, he reaches the king’s throne – he assassinates the king, and takes his piece of the Golden Crown. Now he has two of them – he turns around to tell Nuala to give him hers, but she’s not in the chamber – she is fleeing.

And now, back to our heroes – Krauss brings om three sets of goggles that can pierce the illusion that trolls and other magical creatures and objects project around themselves. They use these to reveal a troll underneath the Brooklyn (I think, anyway) bridge in New York City, who (quite unwillingly) leads them to the entrance to the market. When they get there, the door is sealed by a very cryptic puzzle. Red’s answer is to pound the shit out of the troll until she lets them in; Krauss, however, being a ghost, can permeate the mechanism of the puzzle, and he quickly solves it to open the door.

Once inside, Krauss tells them to keep radio communications to a minimum in order to avoid being conspicuous. They wander around, trying to find the elf who released the tooth fairies – naturally, we know that it was Prince Nuada, but they do not, gogo dramatic irony – until Abe spots a heavily-cloaked elf with the same seal on a wristband. He follows her, until she slips into a small shop at the end of an alley – where we find out that it’s Princess Nuala. When the store owner realizes this, he gives her a map left by her father. Then, Abe walks in – and she asks why he’s been following her.

He says that he hasn’t, but she knows otherwise. She asks his name, and he tells her – Abraham Sapien – but she says that there is no such name. So she asks for his hand, and he touches hers with his – and then, both being telepathic, she understands that he isn’t lying, and what his intentions are. Then, Nuada drops in – and Abe tells her to run, while he handles Nuada. So she does, but Nuada’s pet troll, Wink, drops in.

Very shortly, Red makes it to the fight – and engages Wink. They throw each other around and cause a lot of destruction in the market, but eventually, Red ends up killing Wink. This infuriates Nuada, who throws some sort of a glowing green seed in front of him, while Nuala pleads for him not to. The seed eventually seeks out water, and grows to giant proportions – as it turns out, that little seed was an Elemental; a Forest God. Red saves an endangered baby from a minivan, fights, and eventually defeats the Elemental by shooting its weak point, the head (critical hit~), but not before Nuada manages to make him question his place in the human world. Nuada is aided by the way the public reacts to Red saving their lives – not very favorably. After the Elemental is killed, plants begin sprouting all over the city streets and buildings – it’s really rather remarkable. After the area is cleaned up, they all make their way back to the compound, with Nuala.

While at the compound, Nuala reads some poetry, and her and Abe spark a bit of a romance – it seems a bit fake though, so it’s not really worth mentioning beyond this one sentence. Nuala also reveals that, in her belt, she carries the final piece of the crown – the only thing left stopping Nuada from activating the Golden Army and waging an apocalyptic war on mankind. When Abe tells her that she is safe in the compound, due to its location being top secret, she tells him that, because they are twins, her and her brother share a bond – a connection – and, because she knows its location, he does as well.

Later on, in what appears to be a locker room, we see Abe drinking some beer that he keeps in his locker. Krauss walks in, and they start going at it – Krauss telling him that his downfall is his temper, and that he can’t take criticism. So Red punches him, destroying the glass dome that keeps Krauss’s ectoplasm inside his suit. He slowly leaks out and appears to dissipate, and Red starts to get nervous, thinking he killed him. However, Krauss did not dissipate – he possessed the lockers, much like he did with the puzzle to get into the troll market earlier, so he starts opening them, hitting Red repeatedly until satisfied, when he leaves the lockers and walks away in his (apparently) natural ethereal form. The whole scene is pretty funny.

Naturally, having just had his pride and ego hurt, Red continues drinking, and he brings some over to Abe’s chamber. Red tells him to drink, and he tries to decline, to no avail – but Red won’t hear it. Scene change to Nuala, still in the library – she says to herself “he’s here” – so she rushes to place the crown piece in the poetry book she had been reading earlier, and throw the map she got from that shopkeeper in the fire. Then she turns around, and there he is – so she pushes the emergency button and everybody rushes to the library, including Abe and Red, both still drunk.

They walk in and find that Nuada has the princess captive, at knifepoint – he presses it into her cheek, cutting her, and starts to bleed himself, exemplifying the bond between them. So, Abe and Red engage him in combat. Naturally, Abe gets his ass handed to him. Red, however, does pretty well – but ultimately loses when Nuada stabs him in the chest with his spear, which apparently has an enchantment where it can leave the blade in a victim and grow another. So he leaves a blade in Red’s chest, right over his heart, and tells everybody that if they want to save Red, and if Abe wants to see Nuala again, to bring him the crown piece.

Next, we see Abe and Liz in an infirmary room with Red on the table – but every time Abe tries to get close enough to the blade to pull it out, it moves closer to his heart. Another scene change; Abe is in the library with a team of people, searching the books for the crown piece, when he recalls the poem book Nuala was reading from – he looks in it, and lo and behold, it’s in there. But rather than reporting it to the other agents, he steals it. Then he goes to find Liz, and the two of them decide to steal a bureau plane and go confront Nuada – but he doesn’t tell her he has the crown piece.

So they go to take a plane, and Krauss catches them. He asks them if they have clearance to take that plane, which they do not. So Liz goes off on him – saying how even if he was once human, he certainly is not anymore if he doesn’t understand their plight and let them take the plane. He thinks about this for a moment, and then ends up going along with it, even flying for them. When Liz asks him if he got clearance, he responds “SCREW THE CLEARANCE!” – and off they fly.

The next scene, we see them wandering through a hilly grassland in northern Ireland, in an outcropping of large boulders. They’re wondering how to get to where Nuada is hiding out, when a goblin with a cart (he has no legs; the cart is attached to his lower body) walks up to them – Liz asks for safe passage, but the goblin needs something in return. She offers him her “shiny belt buckle”, but he doesn’t have pants; she offers him “magical eyes”, but he says he already has binoculars. Then he spies the spear blade still in Red’s chest, and says he wants it – but Liz cries out, saying that they cannot remove it.

The goblin, however, wants the blade – and is willing to accept it as payment – so he blows a whistle, and the outcropping of rocks turns out to be a giant rock golem (or elemental, or something), and it stands up when the whistle blows, revealing a sort of doorway to an ancient city in its chest. As we find out, this was an ancient goblin city that is very clearly no longer populated – and the goblin they’re encountering is the one who designed and built the Golden Army, and that’s how he lost his legs.

Eventually, he leads them to a room with a demon-like being attached to the floor in the center of a circle – she has no eyes on her face, but has several on the underside of each wing. As we find out, this is the Angel of Death (yet another character played by Doug Jones), and she has been waiting for them – for she has come to claim Hellboy’s life. Liz pleads with her to save him; Death says that his destiny is to destroy the world, and makes Liz choose – the world, or Red. She chooses Red, and continues to plead for her to remove the blade – which she holds up, stating that it is already done, and she has done all she can – now Liz has to give him a reason to live.

She fades away, while the goblin yells so she doesn’t forget to give him the blade, which she leaves behind. Liz leans close to Red, and tells him that he’s going to be a father. He wakes up, surprised, and she confirms that she is pregnant. After a bit of romance, they remember that they need to take care of Nuada, so they walk to go meet him in what appears to be some sort of throne room. Along the way, the camera pans out and we can see the entire deactivated Golden Army – 4900 massive golden soldiers is a lot.

When they confront Nuada, Abe walks forward and, much to his companions’ dismay, throws the crown piece to him upon being promised Nuala’s release and their safe passage back home. Nuada puts them together and puts it on – thus activating his army, which he orders to kill Red and his companions. What a surprise, the villain went back on his word. So Red and Liz start going to town, and Krauss releases his ectoplasm from his suit so he can possess one of the soldiers, which turns blue while possessed.

They’re doing pretty well – they destroy several of them, and during the fight, Red says “industrible, my ass” – referring to the story that the Professor Bruttenholm told him at the beginning of the movie; he called them indestructible, and Red asked him what “industrible” meant. However, once they slow down and stop for a minute, the destroyed soldiers all put themselves back together. So, again remembering his childhood story, Red yells that he challenges Prince Nuala for his right to command the Golden Army. Nuala cries out that, being the son of “the Fallen One”, Red’s challenge must be answered.

Abe tells him that anything that happens to Nuada also happens to Nuala, and Red responds that he’s not going to kill him – although he is going to beat the shit out of him. So an epic battle between Nuada and Red ensues. Red uses all the humongous cogs in the throne room to his advantage, frequently disappearing behind one and reappearing from behind another. Nuada is still incredibly skilled, but Red isn’t drunk this time – and eventually, he gets the upper hand. Nuada pleads for Red to kill him, saying that if he isn’t killed, he will not stop – but Red refuses.

He takes the crown and, while his back is turned, Nuada pulls out a dagger and starts moving toward Red. He stops very suddenly, however, and starts bleeding from the chest – then the truth dawns on everybody, and we see the Princess, who stabbed herself through with her own dagger. Abe rushes to her side, but ultimately can only hold her hand and tell her how he feels until she passes – and turns to stone, just as her father did.

Nuada gives a typical end-of-the-villain speech, then suffers the same fate. Liz takes the crown from Red, and turns up the heat until it melts, falling to the ground as a harmless mass of gold. The army is all deactivated. It’s very fortunate that that’s how it turned out, if you ask me – they could have also simply been freed of all control and gone to wreak havoc on all living things.

They make their way outside, where some other bureau agents, including Tom, are trying to find their way inside. Tom begins to reprimand them for their behavior, but, much to his surprise, Red, Liz, and Abe all hand him their belts and inform him that they are resigning. He asks Krauss if they can do that, but Krauss simply insults him and walks off with the other three. While walking away, Hellboy talks about his future fatherhood and starts making plans for the baby – but Liz corrects him, holding up two fingers, indicating that she is having twins.

And that’s the movie. I started this review Friday night after I got home; that’s how long it took to write. I hope you enjoyed the plot summary as much as I enjoyed the movie – and if you haven’t seen it, I’d advise watching it if you were interested enough to read through this whole thing.

More »

When the movie starts, we see an SUV full of guys, flying down the highway shooting at people. Then it cuts over to Hancock, who’s sleeping on a bench on some sidewalk, dressed basically like a hobo, with a bottle of whiskey, until a kid wakes him up (with some difficulty) and tells him to go save the city. Finally, Hancock gets up and flies away – destroying the bench and part of the sidewalk in the process – toward the high-speed chase, while Ludacris‘s Move Bitch plays.

On his way to the chase, he flies into a flock of geese, almost hits a plane, and does in fact hit one of those overhead highway signs that advise drivers on which exits to take – the sign then falls on a cop car (or several), destroying everything involved. He gets to the SUV, tears off the roof, and sits in the back seat – not without his bottle of whiskey. He tries to talk to the guys, but they refuse to speak English – I forget what they were speaking. Finally, they decide to pump him full of lead, but naturally, it all just bounces off.

He gets pissed off because they destroyed his bottle of whiskey and his brand new sunglasses, so he jams his feet through the floorboard to stop the vehicle (destroying a good amount of roadway in the process), picks them up, and flies them around for a while. When they beg to be let down, he impales the front of the vehicle on the giant spike on top of some LA building. Obviously enough, the public doesn’t like him, and he sees a newscast to that effect while he sits in some bar later that day – turns out, the damage cost the city roughly $9 million to repair, a personal record for Hancock.

The next day, we meet Ray Embrey (played by Jason Bateman), a real nice guy who does public relations work. The first scene we see him in, he’s pitching a new “have a heart” brand or something like that to a drug company. The idea behind the brand is that it’s a philanthropic seal – the companies bearing it are very select, and the right to bear it requires that the company do something big. What he asks if this particular company is that they give away their newest drug, the one advertised on TV, 100% free to people whose lives it will save. Naturally, they laugh at him.

On his way home, he gets stuck in traffic, and – like a dumbass – stops on a set of railroad tracks. Predictably, a freight train comes along, and he can’t pull forward or back because of the traffic; can’t open his door on the first try because the inside handle is busted, so he has to reach out the window to open it that way; and then he can’t get his seatbelt unbuckled. Then Hancock lands in front of his car, gives him a “what the fuck?” look, flips the car over on top of a couple other vehicles, and stops the train…with his body. Naturally, the whole train jackknifes and derails, causing all sorts of damage.

Ray is very grateful. Everyone else around starts yelling at Hancock, saying what an asshole he is and how he should have handled it. One woman even yells that she can smell the alcohol on his breath, to which he response “‘Cause I been drinkin, bitch!” Ray, however, argues in his favor. He figures, yeah, he should have handled it differently, but the man still saved his life. Because of Hancock, he’ll be able to go home to his family that night. Then he asks if Hancock can fly him home – so he does, along with the car.

When they land, Ray’s wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), and son, Aaron (Jae Head), come running outside asking what happened, since Hancock just dropped their father, in his car, right in the middle of the cul de sac, then dragged the car into the driveway. Ray tells the story and invites Hancock in for dinner, insisting that he stay. His son, naturally, is like Hancock’s biggest fan – and as we also find out, he’s being bullied by a neighborhood boy named Michel (Daeg Faerch, the same kid who played in Rob Zombie’s Halloween).

Over dinner, Ray keeps trying to get Hancock to let him do his PR work. Totally free, he just wants to make a name for himself. The problem is, Hancock won’t admit that he wants the public to like him. At one point, he goes to the bathroom (with his bottle of whiskey), and Mary won’t stop talking about how she feels that Hancock is just bad news. Hancock leaves, and Ray sends his business card with him.

He flies back to his home, which is really just a small cluster of trailers atop a mesa of some sort in the desert. While there, he opens a small tin (like an Altoids thing or similar), which contains a few dollar bills and two movie tickets to Frankenstein. The next day, he goes back to Ray’s house, landing in the cul de sac and leaving a crater. Now we meet that Michel kid, who calls Hancock an asshole a couple times – which is a problem, because Hancock doesn’t like being called an asshole. He throws the kid way up in the air, and that’s when Ray walks out and greets him, saying that he needs to work on his landings – the crater thing is a problem. Then Michel comes down and Hancock catches him – Ray says that that’s also a no-no.

So they go inside, Ray gives him the pitch, shows him a couple Youtube videos, and eventually he agrees. Ray mentions that, apparently, Hancock has failed to show for some obscene number of subpoenas – 860 comes to mind, but I don’t remember the exact number. He has spoken with the district attorney, however, and he’s willing to just send him to jail for a few (eight, as it turns out) years. Hancock, naturally, doesn’t react very favorably to this – but Ray explains it to him, that he just has to go in for a little while, to make the public miss him. Crime will go up, and the public will want him back.

Eventually, he agrees. Ray writes him a speech, which he gives publicly to the press, saying how he’s the only one of his kind, and that he hasn’t been the man he should be – that they deserve better, and he will be better. So he goes behind bars. The inmates don’t exactly like him, and try to pick a fight – but he’s still a fucking superhero, so he hands their asses to them. Specifically, he jams one guy’s head up another guy’s ass.

He’s behind bars for a couple weeks, he even misses a shot with a basketball and it flies out of the fence, where he goes to get it, and just comes back in. Eventually, he gets a call from the chief of police, saying they need his help. There’s a heavily-armed bank robbery in progress, with hostages (lots of hostages), and they just can’t handle it. So he flies through the bank, like a bullet, several times – taking one of the robbers with him every time. Then he stops inside and starts speaking to Red (Eddie Marsan) – the guy running the show.

Turns out, every hostage has eight pounds of C4 strapped to them, and he’s holding the detonator. However, it’s got a spring trigger – if his finger leaves the button, the bombs go off. So Hancock grabs a metal lampshade, uses his fingernail to sharpen the edge, and cuts off the guy’s hand – he takes the whole thing and gives it to the police chief. From then on, he’s a free man, and good in the eyes of the public. But no, it’s not over yet.

Ray, Mary, and Hancock all go out for a free dinner at some very high-class restaurant in the city. Here, we learn about how Hancock came to have his powers – he just woke up in a Miami hospital with them one day. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up there; where he came from, who he is, or how he got there – and all he had in his pocket were those tickets and a couple dollar bills, no ID or anything. When he woke up, though, they tried giving him a needle and it simple broke off at his skin; his skull healed in an hour. As it turns out, the hospital staff told him, he tried to stop a mugging and suffered a nasty blow to the back of the head. Oh yeah, and this was 80 years ago – he doesn’t age.

They get back to Ray and Mary’s house later that night, and Ray’s drunk – Hancock carries him up the stairs and helps him get to bed. Then he goes back downstairs and starts talking to Mary. They kiss, and then she throws him through the front wall of the house. Through it. And tells him not to say a word about it to Ray.

The next morning, Ray basically goes “WTF?” in regard to the front of the house, and Mary says Hancock sneezed and blew the refrigerator out of the house. When Hancock arrives, he keeps screwing with Mary – stabbing her and watching the fork bend, things like that – when Ray has his head turned. He continues this until she finally agrees to speak with him, at his place later that day.

When she arrives, she explains that what they are depends on the culture; they’ve been called many things over the years – gods, angels, and finally, superheroes. Then he asks what their relationship was. She responds saying that they’re siblings – but he calls bullshit on that because of the way she kissed him. So they end up flying around destroying things as they fight, and ultimately, they break the windows out of the floor of the office building that Ray is on, and land in the street right outside.

Naturally, Ray (yet again) reacts like…”WTF?” – but he comes to grips with it pretty quickly after they go back to his house. That’s when we find out that Mary and Hancock were actually married, and that there used to be lots of their kind – but they all paired off and died except these two. They were built in pairs, sort of like magnets – no matter how much distance gets between them, they’re always attracted inexplicably to each other, which is why he made his way to LA after waking up in Miami. The problem is, when they’re together, they’re basically human – they lose all their powers, their immortality, etc.

So, once she’s done explaining this, Hancock flies off, and the next scene we see is Hancock in a liquor store – about to buy a soda. Instead, he picks up a couple bottles of whiskey and takes them up to the counter. The clerk tells him, “$91.10″ – and naturally, the reaction is a “WTF?” – so the clerk covers the 0 and looks to his left a bit; turns out, he’s being robbed at gunpoint. Hancock reaches through the wall hiding them and pulls them out – while he’s punching one, he gets shot a couple times.

Well, apparently he’s been spending too much time around Mary – because he’s bleeding from the abdomen; the clerk is the first one to notice it, and apparently he calls an ambulance, because Hancock gets rushed to the hospital – where Mary meets him. The robber from the bank and the two guys from the prison end up breaking out, with the sole intention of getting back at Hancock. While they’re at the hospital, the trio comes in with the intention of killing Hancock – and Mary jumps in the way of the shots.

Both Hancock and Mary are pronounced dead. Due to a bit of distance between them, though, Hancock wakes up, and slowly makes his way to a window, where he jumps out. As he gets further away from the hospital (mostly on foot, with some long half-flight jumps punctuating it), Mary’s heart slowly beats back to life. Finally, he gets his full power of flight back, and shoots like a bullet straight in the direction of the moon – and Mary’s heart reaches a full rhythm.

And now, the ending scene. Mary, Ray, and Aaron are all out for ice cream, when Hancock calls Ray using a Bluetooth from atop some skyscraper – with an eagle next to him. He tells Ray to look up in the sky – and he painted Ray’s philanthropic logo on the moon.

And that’s the movie. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest it

More »

Well, I finally went and saw it today. Damn good movie – seeing Edward Norton turn green and start flipping shit was definitely cool. Also, seeing Liv Tyler in a movie where she didn’t play a quasi-immortal elf was cool, although admittedly a bit weird. But anyway, onto the plot.

To start out, remember the back story. The main character, Bruce Banner (Edward Norton), is in his…situation…because he was working in a science lab, researching practical applications for gamma radiation poisoning. Little does he know, however, that his superiors are working for the US military, trying to turn it into a weapon. Finally, he does an experiment on himself, which gets him his Hulk power.

Anyway, as the movie begins, Bruce Banner is living in Brazil, learning Portugese, doing basic work in a factory that bottles guarana soda, and taking martial arts to try to help control his anger. It is noted that it has been 157 (I believe, don’t quote me on the number) days since his last “incident”, which of course is him losing control and going green. However, there’s an accident at the factory that causes a drop of his blood to spill into one of the bottles. He thought he cleaned it up, but he was mistaken.

This bottle makes its way to an elderly gentleman somewhere in the US; upon drinking it, the man gets gamma radiation poisoning from the blood. The report reaches General Ross (William Hurt), who naturally knows exactly what happened, and promptly orders a report on where the soda was bottled. They move in, with the intention of quietly tranquilizing Bruce and hauling him away. That, of course, does not happen. A fight ensues, Bruce goes Hulk mode, and the only survivor on the army side is a special agent named Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth).

Blonsky gets the information about Bruce out of the General, and ends up getting him to agree to hook him up with a more refined version of the gamma experiment that was done on Bruce. Meanwhile, Bruce makes his way up to the States, seeking out a so-called “Mr. Blue”, a cellular biologist who has some theories on how to help Bruce (under the alias “Mr. Green”). Mr. Blue, however, needs more information in order to help Bruce – how much radiation he got, etc. Bruce does not have this, and cannot find it when he hacks into Betty Ross’s (Liv Tyler) computer back in the lab. However, once he and Betty meet up (something he was trying to avoid, ironically), she gives him a flash drive with the information on it.

At some point, a fight breaks out in some park in whatever city they’re in. Bruce was preparing to leave to go to Mr. Blue in NYC, by bus, but as he says goodbye to Betty, the army shows up. In the middle of the park. It didn’t really make sense. Anyway, Blonsky is basically a super soldier at this point – he’s much stronger than the others, runs faster, etc. By the end, though, all his bones are crushed by Bruce in Hulk mode – basically turned them to gravel, in the words of the doctor. Afterward, Bruce protects Betty from getting hit by a falling helicopter, and carries her away to a cave in the rain, where she helps calm him down.

So they’re on the run. The General knows about the whole Mr. Blue/Mr. Green thing, so he sets up SHIELD to scan for those two aliases in all E-mails sent throughout the country. Naturally, Bruce sends him the data he got from Betty, and SHIELD catches it. They find out who this “Mr. Blue” really is – and where to find him. So the race is on.

And it’s not a very interesting one. Bruce and Betty just…get there first, and Mr. Blue (Dr. Samuel Sterns, played by Tim Blake Nelson) helps them out. He rigs up a dialysis machine to administer Bruce the antidote directly through his kidneys, during a transformation that is induced by an electric shock to the temples. The transformation almost loses control, though, until Betty again calms the Hulk mode Bruce down – a trick only she seems to possess. Sterns is eager to note, though, that there’s no way of knowing if the cure is temporary, permanent, partial, complete, or even successful at all.

However, once Blonsky recovers (remarkably fast – remarkable period in fact), they give him some more juice. He was already a super soldier, and now they’ve made him more powerful. What a great idea. Anyway, the General’s men storm the building, including Blonsky, who disobeys a direct order to stand down and let them get Bruce without a fight. After they cuff Bruce and begin to take Betty (who disowns her father, the General) away in a helicopter, Blonsky forces Sterns to give him some of Bruce’s blood – not that Sterns can resist the desire to see what happens anyway.

And now the big fight ensues. Good Hulk versus evil hulk. Blonsky comes out of the gate speaking English in Hulk form – something Bruce cannot do – but he’s still clearly turned insane by the rage and pure power. He starts blowing shit up (literally) on the streets of New York City, and the General’s chopper has to turn around to deal with it. Bruce volunteers to take care of it, insisting that it has to be him, despite the fact that he was cured. Bruce, however, is not convinced that he is cured, and jumps out of the helicopter after a romantic moment with Betty.

He falls for a few seconds before trying to transform, then goes “oh, shit” and falls to the ground, leaving a pretty respectable crater. Betty starts to cry, until the big green Hulk fist punches out of the ground. Alright, so now the big fight ensues. Blonsky has the upper hand, returning Bruce’s blows without too much trouble. Bruce gets some good shots in, but is ultimately weaker – maybe it’s because he had the cure administered, maybe it’s because Blonsky had the refined serum in addition to the Hulk juice, who knows?

However, once Betty is in danger, Bruce learns some new tricks. The General’s helicopter goes down on top of a building, and after some more traded blows, Blonsky gets Bruce up against a wall by the throat, digging his sharp, protruding elbow bone into Bruce’s chest, when Bruce snaps the bone off and stabs Blonsky in the head with it. Then, the fuel spill naturally catches and goes up in flames. Bruce does the classic Hulk clap trick, with the sonic shock creating enough wind to douse the fire.

Blonsky finds a pair of concrete blocks on the ends of a heavy chain (what this could possibly be on top of a building for I have no idea) and starts using it as one hell of a weapon against Bruce. Bruce, however, devises his Hulk smash trick (and says it, yay Hulk English~) on the spot and promptly uses it. The chains fly up in the air and Bruce gets them, ultimately getting them around Blonsky’s neck, choking him nearly to death before Betty screams for him to stop. Bruce proceeds to kick the unconscious Blonsky to the General’s feet.

Afterward, in the near future – presumably only a few days or a week or something, Bruce is down in British Colombia, doing his solitude and meditation thing. At the end, however, his eyes are green as though he’s just started a transformation, probably controlled.

And, in the final scene, the General is sitting in a bar pounding down shots of some drink, when Tony Stark of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) walks in and mentions something that, just like in the post-credit scene in Iron Man, suggests something about some sort of an elite team of fighters. At the end of Iron Man, this was done by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, yeah I know, awesome) coming to Stark’s home and mentioning the “Avenger Initiative”. And that’s all we know for now.

More »