posted
Mike Mignola's Hellboy is an unusual genre-hybrid. Equal parts super-hero, pulp adventure, mythology, horror, and 1970s monster comic. All powered by Mignola's incredible storytelling skills...his visual flair is considerable. A faithful adaptation of it would make for a truly amazing cinematic experience.
The trailers for Golden Army made it look like Guillermo del Toro was going for something closer to the comic. It certainly hinted at a better FX budget and cooler monsters!
Unfortunately, the film is only okay. Worse still, parts of it are -almost- good.
The villains are definitely better this time around. An albino elf prince who can chew the scenery and swing a mean sword. Tooth fairies that feast on human calcium. A forest elemental that's as beautiful as it is monstrous. The titular Golden Army is a steampunk fan's dream.
Most of the plot though focuses on the typical "Buddy Cop" flick tropes. Hellboy is the rebel who does not play by the rules. Jeffery Tambor does a rather tepid slow burn. Abe Sapien has a crush and a resulting drop in intelligence. Liz is cranky and ambivalent about her relationship with Hellboy, especially when a very predictable twist occurs.
Not even a delightful turn by Seth MacFarlane as the ectoplasmic B.R.P.D. agent Johann Krauss can save the "downtime" scenes from feeling a bit tedious and extremely derivative, even between a few genuinely brilliant bits. And there's a LOT of downtime scenes.
It doesn't help that del Toro insists on trying to force the whole Uncanny X-Men "A world that hates and fears them" trope onto Hellboy. In the comic, he's been public for decades, is liked and respected, if seen as exotic and living a life no one else craves. The conflicts for him there comes completely from the paranormal world, which view him as a traitor, and his own innate birthright, which is to destroy the universe.
Those conflicts are touched on here, but mostly we get the same old "Meanie humans are prejudiced against the heroes". Feh.
There's lots of eye candy. Some good creature designs. But at best, it's still only okay. At worst, it's almost good...which just frustrates me when I realize they could have done something so much snazzier.
By the way, I thought the creature designs were spectacular. overall, Puff, I totally agree with your review.
I keep wondering why fantasy authors and filmmakers keep proposing this great debate about who we should want to live more -- greedy, world-raping humans, or peace-loving faerie folk. Of course the audience is going to root for the humans, we are human, and we don't like getting pasted with the earth-killer label over and over again in these movies. For me, when I see this raised as a conflict, I usually hope the humans mop up the faerie folk and the filmmaker stop making movies....
it is far better than the first movie, I thought. It had a lot more life.
I don't see these types of films (MIB, Hellboy, etc.) as much more than inferior retreads of ghostbusters; at least, in my mind they're pretty clearly following the formula Ghostbusters created.
I do really, really like the character of Hellboy, however, and would like to see him in great movies.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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Thoughts about Del Toro, as a director: What he's doing is interesting because he's doing it onscreen -- he's building upon the language of fantastic filmmaking, and that's important, and I admire it. Visually he's doing some stunning stuff.
As a storyteller: I don't like him as much. He's okay. Nothing seems very real; nothing ever seems very dangerous. His films don't seem very rooted. I think of him in much the same way I think of certain popular authors in the genre.... He's doing things that other writers already did, and did better, but you can't hold that against him; he's trying. He's not a rip-off artist. He's just not quite that spark, that light, that others have been -- at least for me. I feel very much as though I've heard all these tales before.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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I pretty much agree Puffy. Many of the visuals, especially including all the ones you specified, were fantastic, especially I thought the Forest God was beautifully destructive, and for that matter, probably made for the saddest point of the entire movie for me.
I think it was less than stellar, with some very low points (come on, the duet scene?) and some high points (tooth fairies and such). Most of all I loved the bad guy in this. He wasn't evil for the sake of evil, he had a good backstory. He was a sympathetic bad guy, which is my favorite type. He has a noble goal, and feel is was wronged (and I think he was). His means might not have been noble, but he was far, far more than just a cookie cutter bad guy.
I thought it was, on average, pretty good.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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