Hellboy Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)April 12th, 2004
Hellboy
by Ryan Ellis
April 7, 2004
Didn't Ron Perlman play a heavily made-up, misunderstood, underground hero somewhere else? Wasn't it on television when he played Vincent in the "Beauty And The Beast" series? Why, yes, that's correct. This isn't new territory for Perlman. Strangely, I grew to believe in his character very quickly, even though I had been laughing at how ridiculous he looks in the previews. Maybe it was the way he didn't make a big deal about his grotesque appearance and growled at anyone else who would dare to stare at his scary face. As Hellboy (or HB or Red), Perlman is buried under a pile of red latex. It's to his credit that his heart and courage shine through the prosthetics. If only the movie surrounding him was as likable. I didn't hate 'Hellboy', but it could have been a helluva lot better. One step forward was generally followed by one step back.
Just when I was starting to get into this movie, the chintzy F/X snapped me back to reality. Just when Perlman was being funny and cool and heroic, his elaborate make-up would indeed call attention to itself. Just when the basic good-versus-evil story was propelling us to an obvious titanic conclusion, it derailed itself and made me wonder just what was happening with this muddled plot. The target audience for this film will obviously be fans of the comic book, which I had never heard of until the first time I saw the trailer. Longtime fans won't need the approval of any critic to see this movie and I'm not warning non-fans to avoid 'Hellboy' like the plague because there IS some fun stuff going on here. This movie does what Ang Lee's 'Hulk' tried to do...make a movie look like a comic book. And while director Guillermo Del Toro is more successful giving his powerful superhero some spark and life than Lee was, the same problems with 'Hulk' hamper 'Hellboy'---silly F/X and a WTF climax.
Actually, the beginning of the film inspired some WTFs as well. We're taken back to the '40s and the Nazis are trying to open a gateway to hell. When American G.I.s save the day and destroy that stargate doodad, it seems that most of the villains are dispatched while some weird demons have crossed over into our world. One of those is the baby devil with a stone-covered right hand, horns, a tail, and a bit too much rouge in his complexion. I thought for a while that one of the Nazis had turned into this weird little fella, but no. An unrecognizable John Hurt plays Professor Broom, a paranormal scientist who adopts this bizarre creature and takes great pleasure in raising the badass. Cut to 60 years later and Hellboy is only in his 20s (something about growing in cat years?) and has spent all this time fighting the forces of darkness. In a nice touch, a "Hellboy" comic book is actually IN the movie, as the urban legend grows about whether or not this guy is for real. Somehow, some of those Nazis survived the gunfight 6 decades ago (apparently a few of them haven't aged at all) and they're trying to luring Hellboy to their side. We know he's incorruptible, but they're determined to use him to unleash hell on earth.
So there you go. It's not the most original plot and if you already guessed that this ends in a dangerous locale with huge visual effects and good triumphing over evil, by George, you'd be key-rect. The point of this kind of story is how interesting and compelling can they make the characters and the scenery. And that's the bugaboo. Apart from Perlman's dynamic leading character, I had a hard time giving a crap about anyone in this movie. David Hyde Pierce provides the voice and Doug Jones provides the body for Abe Sapien, HB's aquatic partner-in-solving-crime. He's blue, so guess what colour-coded nickname he has? Just when he proves to be a fascinating character, they leave him at home and he isn't around at the end of the picture. The mysterious Selma Blair plays Liz Sherman, Red's love interest. She picks up where Drew Barrymore left off as a firestarter, able to turn herself into a walking inferno when her passion is, uh, inflamed. Yeah, lots of fire and water imagery here. John Myers (Rupert Evans) is just a dull-ass human, Broom's successor as the FBI leader of this band. The Nazis did so little to impress me beyond their Naziness that I won't even mention any of them here.
Comic adaptations are usually dismissed, but the best ones are filled to the brim with subtext and hidden meaning. I addressed some of that already, but this movie borrows from past franchises a little too often. The storyline imitates 'X-Men' and 'Batman', especially the part about heroes who can't lead normal lives and fight to save a planet full of humans who fear their presence. Hellboy is a tough, sardonic dude who eats as much food as an elephant, chain-smokes cigars, and can take out his hideous enemies with cocksure ease. He's even kind enough to save a boxful of kittens during a nasty subway brawl. In the real world, the on-lookers would have sprinted off that subway platform as soon as such nasty creatures started busting up the joint, but this is the reel world and they just stare. Maybe I'm bringing too much logic to a black-magic type of flick, but I had a helluva time trying to lose myself in this one. Del Toro did a better job with 'Blade II', where his ferocious characters proved compelling from the start.
Professor Broom is half of Hellboy's good heart (Liz is the other half), and Hurt is pretty good playing a father figure to these unusual secret operatives. His final scene is undermined by a the use of "We'll Meet Again", the ironic final song in 'Dr. Strangelove'. That ditty cannot be played without reminding me that another good/evil story used it so hilariously when Peter Sellers discovered that he could walk and the world was going to be incinerated by nuclear hellfire. Yet again, here's a case of a touching scene damaged by Del Toro's directorial choices. Plus, the best sequence in the movie---when Hellboy follows Myers and Liz on a date and confides in a little kid on a rooftop---is intercut with the "We'll Meet Again" scene, stopping both scenes cold. Too bad because it was at this point that 'Hellboy' was just getting going. I was behind Perlman all the way after his tete-a-tete with that kid...if only his director was too. Instead, we get a nonsensical climax of Biblical proportions, people reclaiming their souls from God knows where, and an ending that doesn't make much sense. Granted, the last image is pretty cool in both a literal and metaphorical sense. This movie could've been worse, but it most definitely should've been better.
Oh yeah, here's an important question---will the sequel begin with the heroes going back for Jeffrey Tambor, the cynical FBI chief. "I'm still stuck behind this wall and you idiots forgot all about me!" Hey now!
To give me hell or say nice things, write to [email protected]. And check out my website at http://groups.msn.com/TheMovieFiend.
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