rant-o-riffic movie review, v3.0a. Thought I'd post this and then shut up for a couple of days:

First up this week is the new to DVD release, Hellboy. Yet another based-on-a-comic-book-movie, this one does pretty well (far far better than Van Helsing...did I tell you about Van Helsing yet? Just wait for it...). Anyway, back to Hellboy. Entertaining enough. Synopsys: Scary-red-demon-baby brought forth by the Nazis in WWII. Things fall apart soon after he comes through, good guys prevail, and scary demon guy is raised by good guys. Flash forward a bunch of years, scary-demon-boy is now beefy-scary-demon-guy-with-a-six-pack, and he's working for tha man (USGovt) and hot on the trail of other creepies, kickin' they ass. Pretty cool monster fight scenes. Decent plot. A few "I shall destroy you by devouring you with my tenticled, gaping maw...BUT FIRST!...I shall toss you about the room for a while in order for you to gain the opportunity to foil my evill plot..muhaHA!" moments, but they were pretty forgivable. The one masked monster Nazi demon guy is ultra cool. Kinda like GIJoe's SnakeEyes, but more badass. Anyway, if you're a comic book (or comoc book movie) kinda person, I'd give it a solid "B+" grade (in the gradeschool A-F grade scale). If you're not into that kinda movie, you may be less entertained.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: It's been out for a while, so I'm not gonna go into a full-on review (not like my full-on reviews are all that anyway), but suffice it to say this movie kicked ass. Darker, meaner, more grown-upper (made that word up just for you guys) than the earlier two movies. Keep in mind that I'm a huge fan of the books too, and while this movie cuts out a lot (like all movies based on books do) it still works. Solid A/A+.

Lastly, as I type this, I'm sitting through "Hidalgo". So far, it's OK at best. Essentially, it's about a horse race across Arabia. Aragorn plays (unconvincingly, I might add) an Native American/cowboy with a bad southern accent. Moderately interesting special effects. Beautiful Tattoine-esque desert cinematography. A lot of bad-guy double crosses. Pretty textbook. I'll leave it at that unless something interesting happens in the last few minutes. B- and falling due to predictable Native American halucination in the desert/near death scene.