Hellboy (DVD)

...taken home. Affectionately, the name Hellboy is decided upon.

Sixty years later, Hellboy has grown into an adult and works for the US Paranormal Investigations team. Sarcastic, depressed and misunderstood, he lives in a secret building, along with Trevor Bruttenholm, his adopted “father” and a strange amphibious man named Abe Sapien. The team is deployed on missions to capture or eliminate “things that go bump in ...
...once again unmasked. You see, Hellboy was not the only person to survive the incident upon the Scottish island sixty years before….

The onslaught of comic-to-film adaptations seems to be continuing at an ever-relentless pace, and hot on the heels of the recent disaster that was Catwoman, we now have the latest in a long line. I’ve only seen very little of the Hellboy comics, but the whole concept has always been very appealing, ... more

It is drawing close to the end of World War Two. In his growing desperation to win the conflict, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi allies have turned their attention to the dark forces of the paranormal. Enlisting the aid of the apparently immortal monk, Rasputin, Hitler’s men have set up a secret operation on a remote Scottish island to summon forth evil powers that will aid them in their quest to rule the world. Their plans, however, are not as covert as they believe and a secret task force of American soldiers, aided by a paranormal advisor, has tracked them down. The operation is foiled at the last minute; Rasputin and Hitler’s chief assassin, Karl Kroenen appear to perish and a portal to hell is closed before any demons can be released.

But something – or someone – has made it through the portal. A strange red demon-like creature appears on the island and despite some initial reluctance from the troops, he is adopted and taken home. Affectionately, the name Hellboy is decided upon.

Sixty years later, Hellboy has grown into an adult and works for the US Paranormal Investigations team. Sarcastic, depressed and misunderstood, he lives in a secret building, along with Trevor Bruttenholm, his adopted “father” and a strange amphibious man named Abe Sapien. The team is deployed on missions to capture or eliminate “things that go bump in the night” and they seem to be kept very busy.

When the three characters are called to a city museum, they are alerted to a sealed chamber, where they identify the presence of a malevolent creature. The demon has been concealed inside an ancient relic for centuries, but has now been released for reasons unknown. The creature has killed several security guards and must now be neutralised by the red-skinned hero. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Sixty years after the arrival of Hellboy, it would seem that his existence is much more significant than anyone first understood and a plot to destroy the world is once again unmasked. You see, Hellboy was not the only person to survive the incident upon the Scottish island sixty years before….

The onslaught of comic-to-film adaptations seems to be continuing at an ever-relentless pace, and hot on the heels of the recent disaster that was Catwoman, we now have the latest in a long line. I’ve only seen very little of the Hellboy comics, but the whole concept has always been very appealing, and with Guillermo del Toro at the helm (a self-proclaimed fan of the Hellboy series) the movie looked like it would be one to watch out for. What we actually have is a strange concoction of things that will confound and entertain in almost equal doses. At times sophisticated and dark, at others rather facile and almost child-like, Hellboy is certainly a very mixed bag.

The film opens in a very promising fashion. The events that unfold on the Scottish island are exciting, tense and dramatic. The tone here is very dark, and the wind-lashed landscape, gloomy skies and thundering sound effects very quickly draw the audience in. As the opening titles subsequently flashed up on to the screen, I was genuinely quite excited about what was to follow.

Everything about this film contrasts – where things are good, they have an equivalent element that is not so good, or suffers in comparison to the former. For me, this was particularly evident where the characters were concerned.

Hellboy, himself, is as ridiculous as he is cool. I don’t like his name. He’s a fully-grown, cigar chomping, wisecracking adult for goodness sake, so the term “boy” never really seems very appropriate. Technically, he isn’t particularly good either – his red prosthetic body, clumsy red stone arm and twitching animatronic tail never really cut the mustard for me. It’s just as well really that Ron Perlman does such a fantastic job in bringing the character to life. His attitude is just perfect. As he smashes, slaps and throws his way around the screen you can’t help but like this big red guy who risks his life to rescue a box of kittens.

Bruttenholm, his adopted father (John Hurt), is there more for our benefit than anyone else’s. As chief narrator, and “explainer of everything that there is to know” he adds clarity to a story that probably would not sit very well any other way. Hurt is as good as ever, with his characteristically English accent adding that uncertain touch of quality that you just can’t define. FBI Agent John Myers is brought into the modern-day proceedings for reasons that never really seem very clear to me. As he wanders through the paranormal unit, his disbelief and shock is used to comic effect for the audience’s benefit, but the blend of Men In Black’s Will Smith and Matthew Broderick’s character from Godzilla is clumsy and out of sorts with the content of the film.

Fishman, Abe Sapien is perhaps the most wasted opportunity of the whole film and probably my favourite character. He looks fantastic and genuinely convinces in the part, showing a vulnerability and sensitivity that makes us like him all the more. He is criminally sidelined around the halfway mark in the film and deserved much more screen time than he got. The other misunderstood personality is that of fire starter Liz Sherman (played by Selma Blair) who is as dull as ditch water and seems there only to add romantic interest in a completely uninteresting way.

The bad guys are a similar clash of genius and boredom. Karel Roden’s Gigori Rasputin is dull at best and comical at worst. The decision to place the character of Rasputin The Mad Monk seemed a little strange to me, and he simply isn’t a convincing enough bad guy for Hellboy’s hero. Much more appealing is the vile Nazi creation Karl Kroenen, kept alive by dark magic and hatred. His penchant for self-mutilation and murder is bizarre, gruesome and fiendishly effective and he is a frightening assassin. But like Abe Sapien, his character simply doesn’t get enough airtime. Finally, as far as the bad guys are concerned, someone really needs to explain to me this idea of mad German blonde frauleins, committed to lunacy and willing to sacrifice the world for their lovers. I just kept thinking of Helga from ‘Allo ‘Allo.

Technically, this film didn’t really impress me either. Apart from some of the awkwardness around Hellboy, the effects didn’t really come up to much. The monsters were very “computer-generated” and fairly limited in scope and style, comprising essentially of things with tentacles and lots of teeth. Hellboy thrashes around very enthusiastically with them all, but the lack of variety soon grates and there was also a similarity to del Toro’s other films that started to stand out. Not only was Karl Kroenen similar to one of the assassins shown in Blade 2, but the head-splitting, multi-jawed monsters in Hellboy also reminded me of some of the bad guys from the Blade sequel. I started to feel as though del Toro had used his favourite bits from Blade 2 and woven them into his favourite comic book.

The 12a certificate is both disappointing and telling as it soon reminds you that the film never lives up to its dark potential. I can understand why the decision was made to pitch the film in this direction commercially (although the successes of Blade 1 and 2 should have shown that 18 certificate films can make lots of money too.) I do, however, struggle to accept the justification of this from a creative perspective and feel that the makers rather sold out. It is difficult to rationalise how a film about black magic, self-mutilation, demons and castrated mad monks could be suitable for this age group but the darkness disappears at the expense of family appeal and this really did spoil things for me.

The upside of this, of course, is that instead of horror and nastiness, del Toro has opted for wittiness and a sense of fun, and this is very effective throughout. Hellboy has some great lines and as the big lug gets battered and beaten by one bad guy after another there are some genuine laughs to be had. There is no serious point to the film, Hellboy is a classic “good versus evil” tale and in this it is very successful and enjoyable too. It’s a wonderfully noisy film too and if you like going to the cinema to be deafened and blinded by one explosion after another, this is probably the thing for you.

In comparison to other comic-book adaptations, this sits somewhere in the middle. It isn’t as good as either of the Spiderman movies or X2, but it is much better than the likes of Daredevil and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. There is a lot of affection and enthusiasm in this film. You can tell that del Toro loves these characters and wants us to love them too and in this he is quite successful. What he doesn’t really do is engage us enough in the particular tale that he tells and he fails to fulfil the considerable potential on offer. Hellboy 2 has now been commissioned for 2006 but if the franchise is to go any further than this, then del Toro needs to recognise the conflicts of the first film and develop some of the weaknesses.

Recommended with a pinch (or two) of salt, on the basis of effort alone.
 

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