Review of Hellboy (2004) by Cameron J — 16 Sep 2011

So Hellboy is outrageously stupid, which is probably the first thing you'll notice about it. The plot is sometimes hard to follow, the lines are filled to their brims with cheese, and we don't know what Niles Crane's voice is doing inside that blue aquatic psychic.

And it is sofuckingawesome.

All of this said, I cannot imagine a more perfect adaptation of the comic books. Indeed, it succeeds in a way the comics do not - you feel for Hellboy. You feel your heart out.

This movie isn't good in SPITE of its crazy plot and cheesy lines and its constantly making me draw nonexistent connections to "Frasier": it's good BECAUSE of those things. It has a certain kind of easy swagger that makes you feel like a badass for hours afterward. It has cool villains, shrieking bullet-ridden monsters, and lots of crunching and crumbling stone. Seriously. The amount of stone destroyed in this film could add that much-needed all-male disco club to the Vatican. And that's what you should want from a film about Hellboy. It does everything it intends to do, and surprises you with a little feeling along the way.

"I wish I could do something about this," Hellboy says, gesturing towards his face. If your heart doesn't twinge at that moment, it's missing.

As for the more technical aspects - aside from some inadequate CGI (Silly filmmakers trying to do CGI all the way back in the Two Thousand and Fours) the visuals are great. It looks dusty and colorful and every angle seems to be perfect. Ron Perlman does a great Hellboy, and is fun to watch under all that makeup. David Hyde Pierce, despite being Niles Crane, does a pretty damn good job voicing Abe Sapien. The only actor I wasn't entirely satisfied with was the woman playing Liz. I forget her name, but some of her lines sound a little too rehearsed ("In the darkness, I heard your voice" should have been a bit more moving than she made it).

Lastly, I take issue with the final scene in the movie. Okay, so *NOT REALLY MUCH OF A SPOILER* Liz and Hellboy are making out in the end, and then she catches on fire, and then he catches on fire, and its all like a romantic fiery moment and stuff. But then Myers, who provides the ending voice-over, just stands there and stares at them the whole time, like he has egg on his face instead of blood, which is actually on his face. It's awkward with consideration to the fact that he and Liz were exploring romantic vibes earlier in the film. It's not really a comment on the film, but I'm just saying that if I were him, I would pretend to check my phone or something, because it was really awkward.