Give Evil Hell alt: From the Dark Side to Our Side Here to Protect
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Written by: Mike Mignolo (comic), Guillermo del Toro, Peter Briggs
Starring: Ron Perlman as Hellboy, Rupert Evans as John Myers, Selma Blair as Liz Sherman, Doug Jones as Abe Sapien, David Hyde Pierce as Abe Sapien (voice), and Karel Rodin as Rasputin
Music by: Marco Beltrami
Hellboy = fun fun times.
Dang, I sure liked this movie. It has it's problems, to be sure, but as a whole it just flat out rocks.
For the un-educated, "Hellboy" is an adaptation of the splendid comic book series by the incredibly gifted Mike Mignola. Hellboy himself (Or "Red," "Big Red," or "HB" as he's called by his friends in the film) is a fireproof 7 foot tall red guy with a right hand made of rock, two horns (filed down so he looks more "human"), a tail, a big honkin' gun called "The Samaritan," and a crush on pyrokinetic Liz Sherman. (When her emotions get out of control she bursts into flame, torching everything around her.) Along with Liz, Hellboy is joined by Abe Sapien (A telepathic merman), Professor Broom (His father figure who "raised" him, and also head of the Department of Paranormal Research and Defense), and special agent John Meyers - newly appointed to be Hellboy's "caretaker." All of these characters reside in the Department of Paranormal Research and Defense. When explaining what exactly this department does Prof Broom simply replies, "There are things that go 'bump' in the night agent Myers. We are the things that bump back."
And bump back indeed. Hellboy is a stinkin' fine film. The characters are vivid, the sets are breathtaking, the color palette strikingly artistic, and the direction spot on. It's a good film, one that is well worth catching at least once. Hellboy himself is probably the most fun action hero we've seen since Wolverine - his reservedly flippant demeanor while disposing of said things that go "bump" is repeatedly punctuated by understatements such as "ah, crap." He's fun, hilarious, dangerous, lovable, and sweet. The rest of the characters are just as solid, in particular the characters of Prof Broom, Liz Sherman, and the surprisingly disturbing and deadly Kroenen.
And yet, there's a great deal keeping it from pure greatness. While it has a nice solid run time of 132 minutes, the plot feels severely rushed - a biproduct of focusing so much on the characters. While it's nice (and I think a better choice) to have so much emphasis placed on the characters, the end result is that the plot gets pushed in around them, making the film feel crowded and "convenient" at times. A better choice may have been to scale back the plot a bit and take the "X-men" approach, focusing more on the characters in the first film and then have a huge scale plot in the second. Of course, they probably weren't sure if there'd even BE a second one, so it's hard to fault them for trying to fit everything in. It just seems that a significant amount of the film had been cut out, like we're missing some key points. While it's true that the plot is just as good (or bad) as 80% of the films released in a year, the incredible amount of quality and care shown in the rest of the film exposes the sketchiness of it's plot.
Likewise, the films bad guys - aside from Kroenen, who kicks inredibly large amounts of butt - were largely "blah" and could have been amped up a bit. Sammeal, the hydra-esque resurrecting hellhound, was also a bit overused. Though, to be fair, the film's small budget probably couldn't afford the CGI creation of multiple forms of baddies. Perhaps it's better that they just focused on this one, and made it look so darn good. (It's often near impossible to tell whether you're seeing CGI or practical costumes and effects.)
And again, the only reason these faults stand out so much is because everything else is spot on perfect. This film is gorgeous, and easily balances both insane amounts of fun and moments of true emotion and feeling. And it's good. Darn good. Don't let it's minor flaws dissuade you, this is a freakin' good film, and very much worth going to see. (5/5)
Oh, and the title music flat out rocks.
p.s. - for those concerned about going to see a movie with the word "hell" in the title... Don't worry about it. It's neither evil nor occultic, despite what you may automatically assume. If you're still not convinced, just take a look at Focus on the Family's review of the film right here.
