Day 9: Skip To The End, How Do I Kill It?

HELLBOY (2004)
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
Starring: Ron Perlman, John Hurt, Selma Blair, Rupert Evans, Jeffery Tambor

There's a difference between real Nazis and movie Nazis.  In real life, the Nazis just wanted to take over the world.  In the movies, they always want to destroy it completely.  To start from scratch, I guess.  In one of their many attempts to do just that, they employ the services of the supposedly dead Rasputin to open a portal to hell so that an army of demons can come, cleanse everything by fire and leave the earth a desolate wasteland.  I don't think Hitler thought this plan through to the end. 

Anyway, the Allied Forces are there and stop them just in time.  But not before the cutest lil' baby demon you ever did see escapes and is taken in by the troops.  He goes home with Professor Broom (Hurt), a prominent demonologist, and is given the name bestowed upon him by the troops: Hellboy.

Comic book movies are a mixed bag.  Some are wonderful and faithful to the source material.  Others are so faithful to the source material that they don't bring anything new to the table.  Still others strive to put a new spin on an old favorite to make it modern and hip for the kids, thus destroying what we liked about that character in the first place.  Very few movies get it right.

So, did Hellboy get it right?  To tell you the truth, I don't know.  See, to properly review a comic book movie, it helps to have read the comic book.  Before Watchmen premiered, I borrowed a copy of the book from my then-girlfriend so I could have some kind of reference point.  But I've never read the "Hellboy" comics.  So I can only tell you about the movie itself, which was a lot of fun. 

Everyone tries to cram movies into genre-holes.  For Hellboy, we'd have to create the "Supernatural-Horror-Sci-Fi-Action-Romantic-Comedy".  And Hellboy would be the first film of its kind.  It's got a little bit of everything.  It follows the "three-ring circus" philosophy of entertainment: if you don't like the clowns, there's elephants.  And if you don't like the elephants, there's the trapeze, etc.  The trick is to take all of these elements and blend them together into one cohesive unit called a "movie."  And as fun as Hellboy is, it doesn't always blend together.  Many of the romantic subplots seem out of place, as Hellboy (Perlman) pines after Liz (Blair), a woman who can summon forth fire, but can't controll it.  Now research has told me that the film borrows plots from about four "Hellboy" comic stories, and maybe that was the problem.  Better to stick with one (or two at the most) rather than try to cram in every element of every plot.

Guillermo del Toro is probably the most visually inclined director working today.  He's really got an eye for detail that goes missing in a lot of films.  His later film Pan's Labyrinth on the outside looks like a dark, yet rather benign children's fantasy.  However, once we get inside the hidden world, it becomes the stuff of nightmares - nightmares designed by del Toro himself.  Now, with Hellboy, I know there was a comic book involved, but I can't help but wonder how much of the production design was a combined effort between del Toro and Mike Mignola (creator of the "Hellboy" comics).  I do know this much: the demons were pure H.P. Lovecraft, so I think he should get a nod here, too.

This is what we get when a film tries to be all things to all people.  It's a little uneven, but it's got enough action and humor to keep it fun.  Plus, it makes me want to check out the comic it was based on, which is, in the end, what all comic book movies are made for.