JANUARY 14, 2004

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Bitter Old Man’s Movie Review

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

>> Dark Horse 2003

Hey kiddies, this issue we will be taking a look at
the first book in the-wildly popular Hellsing series,
This is the manga that inspired the anime series,,
and it has finally been brought to North America:
by Dark Horse Comics. Hellsing follows the
adventures of the Hellsing Agency, which is also
‘known as the Royal Protestant Knights. The
Hellsing Agency is a secret organization in charge:
of destroying all vampires in Britain. Well, not
quite all vampires, since the Hellsing Agency’s
greatest weapon in the battle against Darkness is
Alucard, a specially bred vampire who is bound to
serve humans.

The- Hellsing manga and aftime skare similar
art styles, but the manga is lot quite as polished as
the anime series is. The artwork in the manga is
quite dark, with the graphic violence that is the
same as the television series. All is not darkness
and blood splatters, however, as the author takes
time out for moments of light-hearted comedy,
which usually takes the form of Alucard teasing
the two female protagonists of the story. The
manga follows a distinctly different order from the
anime series, however, and information that was
not revealed until late in the series is given to read-
ers early on in the books.

Volume | of the manga series includes a bonus
one-shot story, about the Vatican’s Specialized

The saga continues and, over a
three and a half hour test of one’s
bladder control, brings the protago-

the most part, quite well-done.

Of course, there is no such thing as
absolute perfection.

My first beef with this one is the

nists’ branching storylines back
g storylin

together
again. Box
offices were
swarmed by
prosthetic-
eared geeks
the world
over, report-

“The war scenes were, as in
the previous two _ install-
ments, impressive to say the
least. The makeup on the
humanoid creatures and CG

lack of
detail with
most of
the sub-
plots. At
one point;
some rein-
force-

ing inevitably

ments

ridiculous ON everything else was, aS come in

profits from
anyone
who'd listen. ible. ?
Granted,
that’s no tes-
tament to quality; given the momen-
tum behind the name of the franchise,
they. could’ve done the third install-
ment with hand-puppets and still
raked in record-breaking sales.
Speaking of which... The war scenes
were, as in the previous two install-
ments, impressive to say the least. The
makeup on the humanoid creatures
and CG on everything else was, as
with the previous two, incredible.
There is a good amount of humor
laced throughout. The acting was, for

KOHTARHIRANO

“The Hellsing manga and
anime share similar art
styles, but the manga is not
quite as polished as the
anime series is.” |

Secret Agency Section XIII Iscariot. Section XIII is the Catholic equivalent of the Royal Protestant
Knights, and the two agencies end up clashing with each other several times throughout the course of the
series. “Cross Fire” tells the story of how two of Iscariot’s agents deal with a hostage situation in a
Palestinian refugee camp. The fact that one of the agents has spilt personalitics adds an interesting twist
to a standard storyline, and the ensuing mayhem is vastly entertaining.

In all, Hellsing | is an amusing look at the war against the forces of evil that come out at night. Whether
you are already a fan of the serics, or are just discovering Hellsing for the first time, this manga is defi-

nitely worth checking out.
- Dana

with the previous two, incred-

one of
many
masterful-
ly done
battles, yet
the only explanation -we’re given is
when Gandalf says, “Oh, these guys
have come,” And that’s it. Upon
inquiring where the hell they’d come
from, a friend of mine informed me
that there was a sub-story involving a
previous. war in which the previous
king (I believe) had helped a neighbor-
ing empire, and that this was just one
good turn returning for another. (Nice
of the director not to mention them at
all, eh?). Another neglected subplot is
with with Liv Tyler’s character Her

17

part in the last installment is brief to
say the least, and is barely explored at
all. To summarize without spoiler, she
basically says, “Nah,” rides away, and
isn’t seen again ‘till the very end.
Mind you, that ‘nah’ takes about fif-
teen minutes of pointless shots, which
brings me about to the ‘second install-
ment of beef that I bring you. While
the director might have a great eye for
scenery, he also has a pension for drag-
ging a five minute scene out for what
seems like hours on-end during his
‘dramatic’-scenes. Don’t get me wrong
- his shots are great, there’s just fre-
quently just way too many of them.
Again, another wonderful segue
opportunity presents itself; the last
problem that I found with this epie lies
in its climax. The director closed cach
character's storyline one at a time, in
sequential order, and, of course, using

s “dramatic” directorial style. I
swear to God, if I wasn’t wearing a
watch, I would’ve been convinced that
the last two hours of the movic was
simply denouement.

Despite the shortcomings, this was
still a great movie.

KKK
- Bitter Old Man

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