Review of Hellboy (2004) by Spangle — 31 Jan 2017

Man, these superhero movies have always been the same, eh? Even in 2004, terrific director Guillermo del Toro turns out just another superhero movie that follows the hero's journey throughout and has a horrible boring white male sidekick. Fortunately, Del Toro is such an impressive director, his stylistic inclinations rise above the tame and boring superhero material he is given in this film. Gothic with great mythology behind it, Hellboy is a compelling film with great visual effects and remains constantly engaging and compelling thanks to Del Toro and a stellar lead performance by Ron Perlman as the Nazi-summoned demon good guy. Unfortunately, the film is still derided by its lame and predictable story.

Opening in terrific fashion with Hellboy being summoned, his rescue, and then the introduction to the Paranormal Bureau headed by Trevor Broom (John Hurt), Del Toro manages to create great scope to the film. While it devolves into typical end of the world fare later on, the opening half hour with Hellboy fighting the hellhound in the museum and the introduction and usage of Abe Sapien is tremendous. If the entire film was just Hellboy and Abe Sapien kicking butt, I would have loved this film. But, instead, every comic book superhero movie must devolve into being a "save the world" hero's journey and end up with lame fight scenes between our hero and the big bad guy. This makes the film feel incredibly stale, even if if was one of the first of the wave of superhero movies we have gotten in the 21st century. It bears all the lame and tame marks that continue to deride the genre as it feels sterilized and overly restrained from going in more interesting directions with its story. Instead, Hellboy was merely one of the first films that showed superheroes could be compressed into the hero's journey, regardless of who they are, and the film will turn out pretty good. If this came out next year, it would be an unchanged film and fit into the current trend just fine.

That said, Del Toro's gothic style and influence is all over this film with gorgeous shadowy locals and castles. This infuses the film with his visual style, which was always going to be a very, very good thing. The film greatly benefits from this, often rising above its superhero cliches. The gorgeous cinematography and awesome visual effects also play a role, especially when Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) is on fire. The shot of her and Hellboy kissing at the end with both enveloped in flame is terrific and a great lasting image from this film. Along with the poetic dialogue accompanying this final sequence, the finale - even in spite of the asinine fight scenes - is stellar and why I tune in no matter what Del Toro is attached to and directs. The film also suffers from Generic White Male Actor #7 and his large role in the film. He really adds nothing but bland dialogue, bland looks, bland stares, and bland communication. Compared to the lively and fully game Perlman and the always impeccable John Hurt, Rupert Evans is just so damn lame. I have no idea why del Toro added him in when the film was just fine without his addition. To paint him as a sort of "knight" and hero in his own right was borderline comical as well. If this were from a lesser director, having an audience surrogate this bad with bland action could be the final nail in the coffin. Fortunately, Del Toro elicits such good performances from the rest of the cast that the acting, on the whole, is quite good. Put together with great visuals, there is still a lot to like about Hellboy and that is likely why it has remained so popular.

Given scope and purpose, Hellboy feels tremendous in the first half. Unfortunately, it gives way to the hero's journey trappings of its story, which makes it nothing more than yet another superhero movie. Fortunately, the acting is so good and Del Toro is so talented, Hellboy still manages to be a riveting and truly engaging superhero movie that shows off just what can happen when talented people make a superhero movie. That said, if talented people could steer clear of this crap material in the future, it would be much appreciated.