SuperHeroBooks - Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Hellboy)
|
List Price: $6.99
Our Price: $2.48
Your Save: $ 4.51 ( 65% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Dark Horse
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781593079543
ISBN: 1593079540
Label: Dark Horse
Manufacturer: Dark Horse
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: 2008-06-17
Publisher: Dark Horse
Release Date: 2008-06-15
Studio: Dark Horse
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Decent novelization, but could have been better
Comment: I usually don't read novelizations, but I make an exception with the "Hellboy" films. The scripts to these films are so different from the original comics that it is useful to be able to read these novelizations to catch things that one missed during the rush of the movie. Also, these novelizations are often based on the final shooting script, not the movie as filmed. Therefore, these novels have details and added information that didn't make it onto the screen. All of this added information can be helpful.
It is also nice when the novelization is a great read in and of itself. I had really loved Yvonne Navarro's novelization of the first movie and have read and re-read it many times. (Even though I own the DVD of the first "Hellboy" movie, Navarro's novelization can be carried more easily on the subway than a portable DVD player.)
I truly wish I could say the same thing about Robert Greenberger's novelization of "Hellboy II: The Golden Army". Yes, it is useful for the added information and details that one misses in the film. It is also useful as a comparison to the movie as filmed--there are places where what was filmed is very different from the final shooting script. I would even say that, in general, Robert Greenberger is a pretty decent writer. There's just something about this book that is not as good as Yvonne Navarro's earlier novelization and I wish she had been tapped to do this one as well.
I also have two quibbles with the book as Greenberger adapts the script:
1. Hellboy's adoptive father is named Trevor Bruttenholm. I don't mind that the novelization spells the name phonetically as 'Broom', but Greenberger gives one the false impression that 'Broom' is a nickname. It is not a nickname, it is the way the British name of 'Bruttenholm' is pronounced. (Yvonne Navarro has a similar false impression in her novelization as well.)
2. In several places in this novel Greenberger points out how much older Abe Sapien is than many of the other characters. He then gives one the impression that this age difference gives Abe much more life experience than Hellboy.
It is true that Abe was 'born' in 1865 and Hellboy almost a century later in 1944. Yet, Hellboy has much more life experience than Abe who spent the decades from 1865 to 1978 in a state of total suspended animation. In both life experience and experience in the field, Hellboy is actually decades older than Abe. In both the original comics and in spin offs from these comics, Hellboy is portrayed as the 'older brother', not Abe.
While it is true that Abe often acts more mature than Hellboy, this comes more from his basic psychological makeup, not decades more life experience than Hellboy.
Greenberger's novelization was a fun read, but it will be long before I sacrifice the time to re-read it.
Beth Palladino
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
After an ancient truce existing between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken, hell on Earth is ready to erupt. A ruthless leader who treads the world above and the one below defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures. Now, it's up to the planet's toughest, roughest superhero to battle the merciless dictator and his marauders. He may be red. He may be horned. He may be misunderstood. But when you need the job done right, it's time to call Hellboy. Along with his expanding team in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense - pyrotechnic girlfriend Liz Sherman, aquatic empathy Abe Sapien, and protoplasmic mystic Johann - the BPRD will travel between the surface strata and the unseen magical one, where creatures of fantasy become corporeal. And Hellboy, a creature of two worlds who's accepted by neither, must choose between the life he knows and an unknown destiny that beckons him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
