Digital visual effects abound as Director Guillermo del Toro’s CG-laden sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army and the Harry Potter Years 1-5 Gift Set make their home video debuts. Both franchises have roots in the literary world, and each special edition offers a heaping helping of magic, monsters and bonus features.
Based on the Dark Horse comic-book series created by Mike Mignola, Hellboy II continues the saga of a demon conjured by Nazis who decides to fight for the good guys. After an ancient truce between humankind and the invisible fantasy realm 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, and it’s up to Hellboy and his buddies at the Bureau for Paranormal Research to stop him. Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones and John Hurt all reprise their roles from the first film. The bulk of the visual effects work was completed by Double Negative, with Hatch FX, Baseblack, The Senate VFX, LipSync Post, Cinesite all lending a hand.
The movie is available as a single-disc DVD, a three-disc special edition DVD and a two-disc Blu-ray version. Extras include commentary by del Toro and actors Jeffrey Tambor, Selma Blair and Luke Goss; video set visits; seven mini-documentaries; a behind-the-scenes tour with del Toro; an animated comic and deleted scenes. The special edition and Blu-ray releases also offer a special introduction by del Toro, a pre-production asset vault, a director’s notebook, a concept art gallery, a DVD-ROM script of the film and the featurettes Hellboy: In Service of the Demon and Production Workshop: Professor Broom’s Puppet Theatre. The Universal Home Entertainment release lists for $34.98 on DVD (three-disc edition) and $39.98 on Blu-ray.
Warner Home Video has packaged all five Harry Potter films together for the Harry Potter Years 1-5 Giftset. Visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic are spotlighted in these fantasy flicks based on the book series by J.K. Rowling. The DVD set carris a suggested retail price of $49.92, while the Blu-ray version lists as $129.95 and includes more than seven hours of special features. While these sets are sure to fly off shelves, some fans will no doubt wait for the eventually complete set that will feature the upcoming installments Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which moves opens on July 7, 2009, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, which will be split up as two separate movies debuting in the Winter of 2010 and summer of 2011.
