Hellboy

I've been slowly making my way through Guillermo del Toro's catalogue of movies and this is my first time watching Hell Boy. If you're a Del Toro fan, then this one won't disappoint. He's such a superior director - he adds artistry to this action film through his use of shot making, pacing and colour. At times, the dialogue attempts to be a bit too cute and the love story adds little to the plot, but overall, it's a fun movie that doesn't try to overextend itself.

Great comic series, good times on screen. Del Toro doesn't capture the shadowiness and the Gothic art of the books, but does the get the heart of the material, and plays it well between lighthearted comedy, lighthearted action, and as much weirdness(talking corpses, psychic merman, pyroknesis, Rasputin, clockwork Nazi assassins, and Cthulu, to name a few of the flourishes), as the story can handle.

It is a super-hero movie, but one that mixes in occult myths, weird tales, and conspiracy theories, into a fine entertainment brew. Can't wait to see the next installment in the "The Golden Army". One of the best comic to film adaptations, not for style, but for heart and for fun's sake.

When you are watching a comic book movie you have to take certain things for granted. The superpowers, strange villains, things like that. They are there in a non-existing world; saying they are implausible is true but not relevant. What a comic book movie needs is a nice story that is set in its own world (although real existing places can be there too), an entertaining superhero played by an actor who is able to really create the character, spectacular visual effects that fit the action but most of all it needs to breath the right mood. 'Spider-Man 2' did a perfect job, 'X2', 'Blade II' and now 'Hellboy' come very close. The difference is that 'Hellboy' is the first from what will probably become a series.

The superhero in 'Hellboy' is, of course, Hellboy (Ron Perlman). How he arrives on earth has something to do with Nazis, around 1944, which we see in the first ten minutes of the movie. Let us say he is just here, present day, on the good side, with a professor named Bruttenholm (John Hurt) as his father figure; he was there when Hellboy came from hell. The villains are the same Nazis, you learn why they are still alive, and a lot of monsters they have created. We also meet a love interest for Hellboy named Liz (Selma Blair) and his new partner, Agent Myers (Rupert Evans).

So Hellboy will fight the Nazis and the monsters, but there is more. His father figure is close to death and the love interest, who sets on fire when she is excited, is not really interested. What makes this movie entertaining, besides the right mood we constantly feel, is the dry humor Ron Perlman brings to the character. Hellboy is supposed to be a secret for the outer world although rumors of his existence are there. When Agent Myers goes for a walk wit Liz Hellboy gets jealous and follows them over rooftops where he encounters a nine year old boy. The boy recognizes Hellboy and the scenes that follow the encounter are close to brilliant.

There are other very fine moments. At one point a character asks why photographs of UFO's, aliens or Hellboy are always blurry, not very sharp. We see the truth in this question although ironically in a comic book world the question is very out of place; Hellboy does exist. May be this is not the best comic book movie, but entertaining it is. Compare it to another 2004 movie like 'Spider-Man 2' this one seems flawed although we can see the same amount of fun the characters have. Compare it to the dark and brutal 2004 comic book movie 'The Punisher' and this one is terrific, feels like a comic book the entire time, has an interesting hero with humor. That everything around it is pretty silly we just have to take for granted.

Alright, so seeing as how I'm comment #430, I don't imagine that anyone is going to read my review, or that anyone will be encouraged to watch Hellboy because of anything that I'll say. There are others who have written short novels on IMDb about what a great movie this is, so there's no point in me doing more of the same.

Suffice it to say that this movie is beautifully shot, well acted (with the exception of the kid who plays the FBI agent) and directed by masterful Guillermo Del Toro with style and grace. It's not for everyone, and those who are fans of the comic will probably enjoy it more than your average moviegoer. But if you like movies like The Crow or Darkman, this one is right down your dark little alley.

Hellboy is self-conscious, perhaps, but in the best ways possible. Actually, it's more due to writer/director Toro being very aware of what makes up the conventional bits to every sense character-wise to the world of a comic-book, but also what can be entertaining as well, than it is just to having it being a Hellboy movie where the comic-book Hellboy already exists IN this world (guy sees the Hellboy comic, looks up, it's Hellboy!). We get the tough-as-nails, dryly witty, and possibly ticking-time-bomb hero in Hellboy, a deadly serious villain in Rasputin (yes, Rasputin, with a blonde Nazi as his evil side-kick no less), the young apprentice to the hero (Ruper Evans as John Meyers), the hero's love interest (Liz Sherman played by Selma Blair), the father figure (John Hurt's Professor), and the reluctant 'boss' (Jeffrey Tambor), not to mention the plucky side mutant in Abraham (Doug Jones) AND a magnificent creature in that hard-ass slug. They're all there, bright as day (or dark, depending on point of view), and it all works wonderfully due to Toro running with it all head on. It's not done in a way that's meant to pander to the audience, either, but just to have fun with the conventions, to see what makes them all crackle and pop under big-time special effects. It's not quite a guilty pleasure because Toro is also a smart craftsman.

And craftsman just as much as director, he crafts this world where the creatures (which were and still are Toro's forte) are fierce and radically charged, whether they're crucial to the picture like Rasputin's rabid, rapidly hatching slug-monsters that can only be killed one or two ways, or if it's just a minor creature like the zombie Russian corpse that leads a little of the way when Hellboy and his crew are in the main hideout of the villains ("I was better off dead!"). Toro is sensitive to the characters alongside this, and makes them all pretty believable- and I say pretty cause it's all a little simple, yet effective, in the main thrust of Hellboy's emotional core being about Liz and if she may or may not go for John over him- and doesn't dumb it down too much or contrive the relationships for the audience. It's a good balance, because there is A LOT of action in Hellboy, in fact probably at least a 60% allotment to either Hellboy fighting the monsters after him (usually in the subway, or in the Russian castle), or with the possibly un-dead assassin in the mask and leather who marks as one of the fiercest forces in comic book movies.

So, fan-boys rejoice, because Hellboy should, and hopefully will, have everything one looks for in a brawny, high-octane entertainment where humor isn't confused with cheesiness (Perlman is too well focused as a possible anti-hero to get into any of that, as he makes that hugely built red lug a very real being), and the action isn't over-done with a tongue-in-cheek. Not that Toro doesn't flirt with having goofy things in his picture, like a moment where Hellboy has to save a box of kittens from the grasp of the slug-monster. But they're earned moments among a very tightly constructed story where human evils in history and the bizarre in what is in the facts (Hitler into the occult, Rasputin's very long death) into a comfortably understood framework of comic-book clichés that never get too old when done right. Bottom line, can't wait for number 2!