Hellboy

Hellboy started off life as a Dark Horse Comics graphic novel under the name, Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, written by Mike Mignola. After it developed into a franchise comic mini-series and proved pretty popular among comic readers, the character has had a fair amount of coverage in other forms of media, starring ingames, straight to DVD-animated movies and even his own live-action film in 2004. With beloved underground actor Ron Perlman as the leading demon, a cast full of people that already sound like they would fit in a world like Hellboy, writers that wanted to replicate the writing style of the original comics, and under the control of visionary director, Guillermo del Toro, there was possibilities for this movie to not only be solid, but also unique during a time when comic book flicks were at best bland and mediocre. Tragically the film wasn’t able to escape said expected curse, as the end results were all-too-familiar and unexpectedly boring given the subject matter. After a band of Nazis led by Russian mystic Rasputin (played by Karel Roden) fail to contact ancient demons lost in space, the only thing to come through this portal is a baby demon that scientist Trevor Bruttenholm (played by the late John Hurt) decides to raise as his son. Years pass and a now grown Hellboy (played by Ron Perlman) is paired with FBI agent, John Myers (played by Rupert Evans) who is tasked to keep him in line by Trevor, who eventually passes away. Hellboy, not wanting help, is forced to work with Myers, a fish-man named Abe (voiced by David Hyde Pierce and performed by Doug Jones) and a fire-starting girl named Liz (played by Selma Blair) in order to stop a resurrected Rasputin from finishing his plans. Despite it being received fairly well upon release, grossed over $90 million at the box office, and even earned itself a sequel in 2008, the movie is very similar to every other bad comic book movie that came out around the time with surprisingly little flair and identity outside of its visuals. Maybe because people were so burned out by this point, they were willing to accept something that tried to be a bit more unique, but otherwise doesn’t stand out among the rest.

Guillermo del Toro is an interesting choice for this movie and one that probably wasn’t the best decision. On a production and visual stand-point, he’s a great choice; with his eye for the fantastical warped with deranged reality works wonders in a world that is full of creative demons and monsters, but giving him reign over the directing and the writing was very hindering to the overall project. Del Toro’s movies are always strongest in their visuals, but always seem to be limiting and overly familiar in their story departments, with stories that feel very recycled, are quite basic and overt with their messaging, and with not much new being brought to them from a scripting basis. While the story of Hellboy was taken from the first graphic novel, his main screenwriting credit (with story assistance from Peter Briggs) can be felt throughout the movie’s plot, which feels watered-down, badly paced, and horribly uninteresting. There’s a certain vibe around the narrative that feels like a comic-book with its otherworldly and even bizarre crux, but the essential skeleton of the story is very traditional Del Toro; an individual who is viewed as strange is thrown into a lot of strange circumstances and has to fight against the conforming society around him/her. It doesn’t feel quite as forced in this situation as these components do feel more natural given how this character is presented and operates, but its still a style that he follows throughout his projects and it keeps the movie feeling very lacking in intrigue and unique flair, which is very disappointing for a concept like this. He’s also a director that is not just an artist, but more rather an ARTIIST, someone who goes overboard with being symbolic and meaningful while losing themselves in that metaphorical bubble to the point that it can feel a little overwhelming at times. This doesn’t always have to be a problem if the content is elevated in some fashion or using this artistic edge to express a unique form of commentary, but this film is not trying to be complex or deep but rather just a standard of-the-time superhero flick, so these elements don’t feel needed. It can be felt in the pacing and even a lot of the shots in the film handled by cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, which is far slower and more ‘symbolic’ than something that this concept deserves or even really needs. What should feel like an off-the-walls stylish action movie is shot and paced like a serious drama, and that doesn’t work with this material being as goofy as it is. With no good material to work with, it just leaves the movie feeling long, boring, and shallow.

The characters are about as stock as you could imagine for this concept or for any comic book in general, despite how out-there and distinct most of these designs are. Its hard to pick on a character based on a comic because of lot of what the character represents is reliant on when it was made, so they can very easily be dated if they aren’t written to be timeless. Because of this, the archetypal format of the characters is excusable; the loner hero, the old mentor, the love interest, the non-powered support, the evil villain, etc. What isn’t excusable is how, even with that in mind, these characters are written so flat and bland. The acting overall is pretty unfocused and poorly delivered as well, as everybody has this weird delivery that feels misdirected and slightly hoaky. Ron Perlman as Hellboy feels like a good choice, but his handling is done wrong. While he has the physique and voice of Hellboy down, the character’s lack of a backstory, motivation, and good writing, leaves him without a personality and comes off extremely boring and even pretty annoying. When a character is written to be uncaring, it creates a disconnect from the viewers that makes him hard to cheer for. They need to care about something so that the audience can care about them, and because this character literally has no interest in anything or anyone until the plot forces him to do so, its hard to really care about him at all. Selma Blair as the love interest is pretty awful, Rupert Evans is fine if a bit underused, David Hyde Pierce is actually pretty good as the fish creature but disappears halfway through the movie so his presence is sorely missed, John Hurt is talented enough to make the material work okay despite the poor writing, and Karel Roden is extremely forgettable as the villain (a scenario where a resurrected Rasputin is trying to call upon ancient space demons should not be taken as seriously as this movie is playing it as).

One of the only real stand-out points about this movie is its dedication to its visuals. Hellboy already has a great visual style to it; covering its creative designs over a kinda gritty almost film-noir lens to create something a bit more distinct for a typical demonic superhero tale, and that does come through in the movie. While the locations they go to aren’t always the most interesting, the color saturation and overall production design by Stephen Scott can sometimes add a nice new touch to an otherwise bland looking area. Del Toro is aware of color contrast and uses that to his effect nicely in certain moments of the film (seeing a snow-covered ruin with a large red creature in the middle of it is especially striking). The make-up on Hellboy and Abe Sapien are really amazing; it looks like the characters, the emotions that come across are really effective, it never looks restricting on either and it allows the movie to capture a bit more of that visual style from the comics as the locations weren’t doing a great job at that. The CG for the movie isn’t really great, but its not as awful as you would expect from a movie that came out around this time. One of the benefits this concept has over others of its type is that it doesn’t feel as stuck in the 2000s as other comic book movies did. While its definitely not timeless, there isn’t as many annoying tricks of the time that stick out as troublesome, most likely because Del Toro (for all his flawed quirks) tries to not be visually dull in his films and does clearly have a respect for passionate and creative ideas, so even if he can be a little stale and repetitive, he’s not someone who is going to resort to dated elements of a time period.

Hellboy is a larger disappointment than other comic book movies that came out around that time as it could have been something more than just another mediocre outing for the pile of failed superhero adaptations. The movie doesn’t really stick out with anything outwardly anger-inducing like other comic book movies may have had with their target audience, but it wasted a lot of potential and became a little more annoying because they had a visual eye for what this movie could have looked like. Apparently, the sequel would dive further into the visuals of the series and make something even more unique looking, but here its just a boring movie. The characters are hollow, the story is underdeveloped, the acting is bad, the pacing is too slow, and the visuals are really wasted with this material. What should have been awesome was instead incredibly lifeless, the threat of space demons is surprising not worth a watch.