Hell….Boy…..
Posted By Kathleen David on April 6, 2004
Yesterday we left the baby with a baby-sitter and went to see “Hellboy”. It has two of my “must see” actors in it, Ron Perlman and John Hurt. I have gone and seen some awful dreck to see their performances. Both were very good in this movie.
I first started reading Hellboy because of a customer at a comic shop I worked at. He raved about Hellboy to me just about every week he came it to pick-up his books. So I sat down and read it. I liked the character and the art so I would at least read if not buy the book when it came into the store.
Perlman was perfect casting for Hellboy. He has a line delivery where the most absurd line sounds matter of fact and normal. Perlman first came onto my radar when he played Vincent in
You’re right there were holes in the story but I was having far too much fun watching it to care. Especially with Kroenin one of the far scarier villains of movie history. If only he had the power of the force a Star Wars/Hellboy crossover would be downright peculiar. Still would have to be better than Episode II.
Agree with most of what you said Kath, but just wanted to add that Jeffrey Tambor was pretty impressive, too. Did you stick around through the credits? There was a nice bit with him if you did.
Yea, we did and Jeffrey Tambor performance was excellent. Peter and I loved what happened between him and Hellboy after the clock room incident.
Good review Kath.
I felt the same way, it looked great, and we had a good time (combine it with just coming back from a trip and being glad to be off the airplane), but it could have been better.
Maybe they will get a better script for the sequel.
Joe
I’ll go with you on the review. I wouldn’t tell anybody to go see this thing though. Half the target group for the flick were walking out talking about how bad it was. Me, I just felt it was a gloss.
Here’s an odd idea though. As I was driving home I had a thought. This would have been a better movie if it were a SMALLER film. It wanted to be big so bad that it went from big scene to big fight to big scene with almost no let up. Result? It, for me at least, seemed to have lost a lot of the small human stuff that would have made a movie like Hellboy tick. As it was, lots of flash but most the charecters came off as cyphers and cardboard cut outs.
Later
i agree with you kathleen,
it wasnt a good story but i had fun
oh and about the clock room scene
in the book the art of hellboy
(in bookstores now)
an earlier version of the script is included
and in it the scene ends with hellboy saying
“my job”
but i like the way they ended it in the finished film better
it was a nice moment between tambor and pearlman together
hurt was good too
he not only gave a great performance
but he was virtually unrecognizable
what a great makeup job!
I think you hit it dead on when you called Myers the POV character. Since Abe, Liz and even Hellboy are presented as outsiders, Myers was intended as nothing more than someone the viewer could relate to. That fact that he was a little too mundane is irrelevant. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the, um, well, hëll out of it.
I went with my 11-year-old, and we both enjoyed it.
Not too deep, as you said, but it evoked enough of the spirit of the books to keep it entertaining for me.
I was really beginning to dislike Tambor’s character until the clock room scene; after that, my opinion did an about-face.
I’m wishing I could have stayed through the credits, now, but we had to leave…
I found a lot of surprises in Hellboy– there were enough unpredicable plot elements and good characterization that I kinda forgave the more predictable plot elements. The monsters were scary but made me think they may have been originally created (by HP Lovecraft?) by someone who has been physically or sexualy abused as young child.
I especially liked how they were inconclusive on the actual “hëll” topic. The space alien monster aspect could be read in for the uber religious who still wanted to enjoy the movie, and the fantasists out there could imagine that the spaceship where the evil thing was — was in fact similar to the statue where the more minor evil thing was.
How’s that for not being too spoiler-ish?
i am 16 yers old and i saw hëll boy a while ago and i loved it man it is 1 of my favorites and i wuld suggjest if u havent seen it buy/rent it adn watch the hëll out of it