Movie Review Hellboy

Hellboy (2004) 

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro 

Written by Guillermo Del Toro 

Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, David Hyde Pierce, Doug Jones, Karl Roden, Rupert Evans

Release Date April 2nd, 2004

Release Date April 1st, 2004 

What Director Guillermo Del Toro went through to realize his vision of the comic book Hellboy on the big screen is the textbook definition of perseverance. Del Toro survived dozens of pitch meetings, copious amounts of idiotic studio notes about everything from “Why is Hellboy red?” to “Can he have a hellmobile?” to the biggest battle over the casting of Hellboy himself. From day one, Del Toro wanted Ron Perlman. Various studios kept suggesting The Rock, Vin Diesel or even Schwarzenegger (pre-Governator).

If only the vision that Del Toro finally realized was as interesting as the battle to realize it.

Ron Perlman is Hellboy, born in the fires of hell and brought to Earth via a portal opened by the Nazis in 1944. You see, Hitler was a devout occultist and hoped to use a portal created by the legendary Russian bad guy Rasputin (Karl Roden) to unleash the 7 chaos of blah blah whatever. Rasputin was interrupted in his attempt to destroy the world by a group of US Army soldiers, led by President Roosevelt's top advisor on paranormal activity, Professor Broom (John Hurt). The interruption prevented the end of the world and killed Rasputin, sort of. One thing did survive and that was Hellboy.

Sixty years later, Dr. Broom has raised Hellboy as his son and the two fight evil as part of a secret FBI division dedicated to the paranormal. With the help of other freaks like the psychic fish-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones with the voice of David Hyde Pierce) and the pyro-kinetic Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), Hellboy fights evil. Well at first Liz isn't much help, unable to control her fire making capability, she has left the group and is trying to forget her past. Hellboy, nursing a serious crush on Liz, won't let her forget.

The group’s newest member is just a regular guy, Agent John Myers (Rupert Evans). His assignment is to take over Dr. Broom's daily assignment of attempting to cover Hellboy's huge tracks. The media has been hounding FBI Director Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) about Hellboy for years. Still, the FBI always denies his existence with graceful dodges. That task is complicated by Hellboy's constant escapes to retrieve beer, cigars and to see Liz. It's Myers' job to keep Hellboy in line.

When Rasputin rises from the grave, with the help of his henchwoman, an immortal named Ilsa (Biddy Hodson) and a surgery freak dome-wearing Nazi, he brings with him a group of squid-like dogs that feed on human flesh and multiply when killed. The squids are meant to occupy and capture Hellboy and Liz for some convoluted end-of-the-world scheme. If you think my plot description is complicated, see the film and try to figure it out for yourself.

What I liked about Hellboy is Ron Perlman. Perlman plays Hellboy like your average world-weary cop who happens to be seven foot tall and from Hell. Sadly resigned to his fate Hellboy sets about each task in front of him as if this were just another average day. Perlman gives Hellboy humor and depth with the way he delivers his lines and the way he regards the camera and the other actors. Hellboy is the one and only fully fleshed out character in the film.

The rest of the cast is a wash, especially Rupert Evans as Agent Myers. Evans is the first actor I have seen who makes Ben Chaplin look animated. His blank stare and damsel in distress poses should be played for laughs but sadly it's obvious he was playing it all straight. The character of Myers is given a subplot as a romantic rival to Hellboy for Liz Sherman, but it's never a fair fight. As for Selma Blair, one of my absolute favorite actresses, she is sadly on autopilot in this film. She can conjure fire but her eyes never show any flame of interest in the story.

Oddly, the one interesting character aside from Hellboy is the Nazi in the helmet who keeps himself alive through gruesome means. That character is uncredited on IMDB so I know neither the character or the actor’s name, but he was pretty good. He’s a better villain than Karl Roden's Rasputin who is basically Alan Rickman minus charisma.

I will say this for director Guillermo Del Toro, his eye for special effects, makeup and CGI is spectacular. The CGI in Hellboy is some of the best outside of George Lucas and Star Wars. Seamlessly integrated with the actors, very little of the digital shadowing that haunts so much of the CGI effects employed in this type of picture.

If as much work had been put into creating a coherent story as was put into the incredible effects, then Hellboy could have been spectacular. As it is, it's worth seeing for Perlman and the work of Del Toro's special effects, makeup and graphics teams.

Movie Review Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Hellboy 2 The Golden Army (2008) 

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Written by Guillermo Del Toro

Starring Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor, Anna Walton, Doug Jones, Luke Goss

Release Date July 11th, 2008

Published July 10th, 2008

The most disappointing film of the summer, thus far, is Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. As a fan of the 2004 Hellboy movie from the exceptionally talented writer-director Guillermo Del Toro, I was stoked to see his follow up. Now, I wish he had just moved on to his next project, The Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army returns Ron Perlman to the role of Hellboy, a red demon fighter for humanity. For the uninitiated, Hellboy was discovered by the Nazis but raised by an American scientist. Working for the Bureau of Paranormal Affairs, a secret arm of the government, Hellboy fights battles that no one is supposed to know about.

Four years since Hellboy lost his father, played by John Hurt, and won the heart of Liz (Selma Blair), Hellboy remains a cantankerous, rebellious soul who can't resist getting his picture in the paper, over the objections of his boss (Jeffrey Tambor) who's forced to come up with ever more elaborate spin to convince people Hellboy doesn't exist.

Keeping Hellboy under wraps however becomes far less important once a former member of the Elf royal family, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), decides to end a centuries long truce with humanity. His goal? Destroy humanity and bring the creatures darkness into the light.

To do so Prince Nuada will call on the Golden Army, indestructible soldiers made of solid gold. Standing against him is his sister Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) who wants to keep the truce in place. She turns to Hellboy for protection and to Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) Hellboy's fishy best friend who falls head over gills in love with her.

Hellboy vs The Golden Army sounds like it should be a pretty awesome battle and as a special effect it's impressive

Unfortunately, it also will by the end be fought with little context and consequence to the story. Writer-director Guillermo Del Toro simply loses interest in the story and turns his attention to crafting creatures and giant special effects.

Some will find Del Toro's choice of visual splendor over storytelling to be dynamic and imaginative. For me however, I was quickly bored with the creatures and the giant effects and longed for the characters to deepen and the story to take on some meaning. I wanted the dueling love stories of Hellboy and Liz and Abe and the Princess to gain meaning.

And finally, I wanted the vibe of cool that Hellboy carried in the first film to return. In the first movie, Star Ron Perlman cultivated a Bogart-like air of detached cool mixed with vulnerability. In Hellboy 2 that vibe is replaced with a bizarre sense of humor that ranges from Men In Black lifts to references to Barry Manilow.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army has a number of unformed ideas that could have been more interesting. At one point in the movie Prince Nuada gets in his head about how humanity doesn't appreciate Hellboy, asking him why he still helps them. For a moment Hellboy is conflicted. The conflict lasts for about a minute and is then discarded. Worse yet, the same idea was played out with more depth and understanding in the X-Men movies. Essentially, the most interesting idea Hellboy 2 has has been done already and done far better.

With its bizarre sense of humor and focus on creature creation over story development, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army becomes an odd mélange of disappointments and undermined ideas. Yes, it's a good looking movie. But who cares.

Movie Review: The Time Machine

The Time Machine (2002) 

Directed by Simon Wells

Written by John Logan 

Starring Guy Pearce, Jeremy Irons, Samantha Mumba, Mark Addy, Orlando Jones, Doug Jones

Release Date March 8th, 2002

Published March 7th, 2002 

I have never read the classic story of The Time Machine by HG Wells but the story is so iconic and the idea of time travel so enticing I feel like I've read it. Though now after having seen this film version of The Time Machine I'm glad I never picked up the book.

For the uninitiated The Time Machine is the story of a doofus scientist Alexander Hartdegan, played by Guy Pearce, who after his fiancée is murdered becomes obsessed with going back in time and changing what happened saving her life. Hartdegan accomplishes time travel but finds himself unable to alter the past, for some reason no matter how he changes things his fiancée dies anyway. These early scenes are somewhat effective and setup an intriguing question. Why can't Hartdegan alter the past? Hartdegan, confounded by his inability to change the past, journeys to the future to answer his question.

His travels take him over 800,000 years into a future where there are now two species of human, the above ground and peaceful Eloi and the below ground terrorists, the Morlocks. Singer Samantha Mumba plays Alexander's perfunctory Eloi love interest and Jeremy Irons, chewing any scenery left over from his performance in Dungeon's and Dragons, is the evil Morlock overlord. Irons' character provides Alexander with the answer to why he can't change the past, an answer so unsatisfying I wanted to get up and leave. All of the scenes in this future world are boring illustrations of the missed opportunity The Time Machine truly is. Instead of tackling time travel from an intellectual, moral, or spiritual angle we are given a dull adventure plot that goes nowhere fast.

The film's main problem is it's perspective. I understand that since Alexander is from 1895 he doesn't have much of an idea of what to do with his invention other than to change his past, but what a squandered opportunity. The chance to see history in the making and all he can think of is himself, which doesn't make for a very likable character. It doesn't help that Pearce, plays Hartdegan as perpetually waking from a deep sleep always squinting and confused. Here is the guy who invented this time machine yet he still has no idea what it is he's doing with it.

And is it me or has Jeremy Irons completely slipped into self-parody? I can't watch him without laughing and I'm sure that is not what he is supposed to be going for.

The Time Machine is yet another big budget mess, all bells and whistles and no brain. Now that I think of it that is just typical Hollywood.