Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms

I was looking forward to this, and yet was still surprised to see it on TV so soon. I love the Hellboy comics and associated spin offs. I thought the movie was great, too. This cartoon version did a great job of bringing the feel of the comic to life, and as a bonus, Ron Perlman and Selma Blair from the movie version do the vocal work of their characters, respectively Hellboy and Liz Sherman. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Doug Jones, who played Abe Sapien in the film but did not get to voice his character, which was done nicely by David Hyde Pierce, actually provides the voice for Abe Sapien here, and does a great job, too. The story is good, and much like the comic, focuses on the paranormal aspects of myth and folktale, in this case involving a Japanese sword. The animation was great, reminding me both of the comic art by Mike Mignola and the Batman, Superman, and Justice League animated series. I was very entertained. If you like either the comics or the movie, you should check it out, and if you like stories involving the paranormal a la the X-Files, you may very well love Hellboy, who brings a neat twist to investigating the paranormal.

After a professor opens an enchanted scroll, the BPRD have to face the threat of two gods(Storm and Lightning) returning, and awakening their brothers, the dragons, and ending the reign of man on Earth. Hellboy himself(who spends almost all of this isolated from the others, on a sort of spirit quest, defeating a handful of fairly distinguished mythical creatures from Asian folklore - spiders, cannibalism, those kinds of things... admittedly, that does lead to this having a video-game structure, with just one fight sequence after another, and there is only minimal connection between them; they just wanted a lot of these beings in the same production) has to protect the titular sword, which holds the power to release the duo. Abe and Liz are together on a mission, supporting each other and developing their relationship, with her having to deal with her powers(in that they are extremely useful, yet they make her feel like, as she puts it, "a freak") and him going far to help keep her safe. This is roughly 78 minutes, including the short end credits. Having not read the comics, I can't say if this lives up to the source material. The style appears to be pretty similar, and certainly quite non-threatening. Animation is nice, with some visual ingenuity and use of colors to set tone(this is effective at being creepy, at establishing mood and at very sharp turns in our perception of something as a positive or negative presence) if nothing terribly creative about the camera-work and editing(considering the possibilities, when one doesn't have the laws of physics that constrict live features). The voice acting is well-done. This gets some extra appeal to those of us who only know these great characters from the movies by it being the same trio, and they make the transition well(Perlman is just as enjoyable here as in the flicks, and steals the show here, as well). I suppose you could argue that Blair sounds slightly off, and slightly overdoing it here and there. The plot is sufficiently engaging and there is a fair balance between eerie, mysterious beings and the like and explanation so you aren't completely weirded out. This is well-paced, you're not bored and there's a solid amount of action, as well as catching up on what's going on, with consistently rising stakes throughout. The humor comes very naturally to it and is genuinely funny. Dialog is very well-written. We change locations numerous times, and you don't get bored with the setting. And yes, Red does get to swing that blade a bit. One could probably follow this reasonably going into it blind, not knowing who these people are, etc. The DVD comes with slightly longer extras put together than the picture itself: An informational commentary track by Mike Mignola, Tad Stones, Phil Weinstein, and interesting featurettes: 42 and a half minute Keepers of Hellboy(the first scene of the film, then a panel of the creators of this at a con), To Hell & Back(10 minutes), Conquering Hellboy: The Actor's Role(6 and a half minutes), View From The Top(5 and a half minutes), A New Breed(5 minutes), Hellboy Goes East: Tail Spin(3 minutes), Hellboy Goes East: Samurai Songs(3 minutes), Hellboy Goes East: Prop Prefecture(2 and a half minutes) and Hellboy Goes East: Origins(2 and a half minutes). There is violent and disturbing content in this. I recommend this to fans of the franchise. 7/10

I get the feeling that this "Hellboy Animated" movie only materialised to cash in on the popularity of the live action movie.

This seems to be a prequel to the first Hellboy movie, but it lacks the sense of grandeur that the first, or Golden Army, had. It feels like a "just another day on the job" accounting of one of Hellboy's more interesting paranormal cases, which in this case involves a plot by some Japanese demons to enslave the world and the key to stopping them lie in the form of an ancient Samurai Blade. Fair enough. It sounds quite good. I bet it sounded better on paper than the end result we see on screen. The plot weaves in and out, cutting between Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman responding to some anomaly in the ocean, 2 BPRD agents tracking down a possessed Professor and Hellboy lost in the Japanese backwoods with the Samurai Sword. It gets a little hard to follow at times and many scenes just seem unnecessary in advancing the overall plot. The producers tried to throw in some very unique monsters and threats for Hellboy to face, based on many ancient Japanese myths. A noble move, but unless you are already well versed in the old folklore from the land of the Rising Sun, those monsters(that apparently the production team painstakingly researched) would just come across as generic supernatural threats with some quirky designs.

In the end, The whole resolution to the story is possibly the weakest aspect; a real let down. There is a romantic subplot involving an ancient samurai and his ghostly lover but it is not like the romance in the live action movie, more closer to Saturday morning cartoon style of romantic relationships. It is cheesy and would easily make one shake his head in disbelief that the script writers would throw in something like that into an otherwise well written script.

The animation for the most part is also relatively weak. As a direct-to-DVD animated feature, Hellboy Animated's animation does not stand up well to other animated feature adaptations of comic book superheros It is stiff, with bland camera angles and uninteresting storyboarding. The visuals are painfully simple, along the lines of animated TV series much less a animated feature. One would think that Mike Mignola's streamlined art style, minimalist colouring and dark, grim and quirky visuals form the comic book would be easy to adapt to animation. They were able to capture Mignola's art style perfectly with "The Amazing Screw On Head" that was released a month earlier from Hellboy Animated. Alas, the production company chose not to stick to that look and went with another stylised look that, in my humble opinion, looked absolutely horrible.

The character designs looked like a splicing of Kim Possible, Danny Phantom, and some of the worst looking episodes from the 90s Batman animated series and Transformers Animated. Body Proportions are almost laughable and the overall look comes across as cheap and lazy. This show would not have looked out of place when aired on Saturday mornings after Spongebob Squarepants.

Thankfully, a highly enjoyable script and excellent character chemistry saves this show from being a utter failure. Dark Humour, witty comebacks and entertaining banter among the characters. The movie captures the quirkiness of the comics very well and the actors from the film reprise their roles, lending to the feel of continuity.

This one is really a mixed bag. If you can get pass the overall under-budgeted look and cheap-o feel of the animation then make your way through one mess of a story smelling like cheese, you got a really entertaining animated movie on your hands. Fun to watch, but little else beyond that.

I caught this on its Cartoon Network debut, after about two weeks of waiting eagerly for the day to come. After I'd witnessed the Sci-Fi Channel's absolutely brilliant "Amazing Screw-On Head", also a creation of Mike Mignola, maybe my hopes were too high that this would have the same edge and charm and wit. It didn't quite hit that peak. Considering the audience, I guess it couldn't have.

Another thing I wasn't prepared for was Abe Sapien being so completely different from his movie incarnation. Not worse, just different. Despite having most of the same voice actors, don't come into this movie expecting it to be a translation of the live film.

Artistically, it's pretty great stuff. I watch the DeviantArt gallery of one of the film's concept artists, and minus some tweaking on the designs to make them easier to animate they kept it pretty consistent to the art direction. The character designs of the supporting characters are pretty standard stuff, but the film also boasts some truly beautiful layouts and artwork with rich and well-used color. Animation's kinda choppy in places, but nothing too bad.

I kinda wish the script and voice acting really stepped up to plate; despite its efforts there was only one line in the whole film I really laughed at. Still, it was a good way to spend two hours. I'd watch it again.

Not a fan of this animation style, the proportions between the character were way off from the movie and the voice acting was terrible. It was a nice touch to use some of the same voice actors from the films, but when the actors don't give a great performance in live action what makes them think there voice work will be better. I really wanted to like this animated movie because I had heard it was closer to the comic books (which I have never read) and I have felt the movie was missing a little something and maybe that was it's distance from the comic books. But if this is really a better representation of the comic books then I'll just stick to the live action movies.