HELLBOY (2004)
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Genre: Superhero/Occult/Detective
THE MOVIE:
Guillermo Del Toro is the superb Mexican director who gave us such great genre movies as Mimic (1996) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006.) He has an all encompassing interest in monsters and brings them to the screen with great love and care. Hellboy is probably one of his most personal movies, as the central story deals with a monster’s struggle with his nature and the path that he has chosen versus that for which he was created. The movie is based on characters from the comic of the same name which was created by Mike Mignola, who worked closely with Del Torro on the movie.
The main character is Hellboy, a demon summoned as an infant to earth by Rasputin and Nazi occultists at the end of World War II. After the defeat of the Nazis he was taken in and raised by a kindly occultist, Dr. Bruttenholm who works for the Federal Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, which was founded by FDR (who apparently never passed up a chance to start a government program). The Bureau is a sort of paranormal detective service which eventually includes Abe Sapien, an intellectually-gifted psychic fishman (voiced by the wonderful David Hyde Pierce) and the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman.
It's time to call Super Nanny.Hellboy serves as the strongarm of the group, a gruff blue collar action hero with some very adolescent vulnerabilities. The group is a family unit with Dr. Bruttenholm acting as the wise patriarch.
Hellboy deals centers around the newest addition to this group, the fresh faced agent Myers, at a time when Rasputin returns with a few of his preternatural Nazi cohorts, including the clockwork cyborg, Kronen. He also utilizes the Sammael, monstrous demon hounds that reproduce twice for everyone that is killed. Rasputin wishes to reopen an extra dimensional portal to unleash a giant Lovecraftian tentacle monster on earth and to reclaim Hellboy for his original purpose, to serve as the herald of the End of Days.
"...and that's for Alien vs. Predator 2!""That wasn't me! I swear!"
While I am a big fan of the movie, it perhaps suffers for having too many incredulous plot lines for one movie. You have a demon struggling with his nature, a Federal Bureau of Paranormal research, Rasputin, occultist Nazi remnants (one of whom is a machine the other doesn’t age), a pychic fishman, a pyrokinetic struggling with her powers, a machine that summons extra dimensional tentacle monsters. On top of all that, a love triangle and interdepartmental infighting.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:
Never having read the comics I was immediately interested in seeing this movie upon seeing the trailer because of the very imaginative creature design. Hellboy is chock full of good creature work. There’s Hellboy himself, who is superbly played by Ron Perlman under extensive makeup. If you’ve never seen Hellboy, know that he is big, red, has sawed off horns, a tail, and a large stone hand.
Abe Sapien is an aquatic being of a very extra-terrestrial appearance, with large dark almond shaped eyes and mottled blue skin. He is performed by Doug Jones on set and voiced by David Hyde Pierce.
Kronen is perhaps the film’s most visually interesting and badass character. He is a human being from the time of the Nazis who surgically enhanced himself with mechanical parts. Interestingly, his mechanics are low-tech and consist largely of gears and clockwork. He wears a couple of different masks that resemble gas masks. He is one of the most dangerous characters in the film and wields knives and swords fatally.
Bad...ass.The Sammael engage in some very cool hand-to-claw scenes with Hellboy. They rather look like the bastard children of Aliens and Predators, and therefore a bit like the Predalien from AVP:R. They are basically quadrupedal with skeletal faces, long weapon-like tongues and tentacle manes around their heads. They seem to have the ability to infinitely contort their bodies.
The effects are by and large very good, although there is some annoyingly bad wirework. There are far too many scenes of people being “blown back” or “thrown” into walls and other objects where they are clearly being pulled by some sort of waist harness.
MONSTERS FEATURED:
All of the above, as well as a giant tentacle monster.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:
This movie really has a ton of them but I love Hellboy’s subway fight with Sammael.
SEQUELS:
I was rather meh about the sequel Hellboy 2: The Golden Army which was released summer of 2008. Guillermo del Toro is going to be busy herding Hobbits for the next couple of years so it may be a while before we see another Hellboy, if at all.
DVD AVAILABILITY
Available in a single disc or special edition two disc set on DVD and also on BluRay.
SEE ALSO:
What else is there like Hellboy?
Try the animated follow ups:
Hellboy: Sword of Storms and Hellboy: Blood and Iron
Get a handle on some of Del Toro’s other movies:
Mimic deals with insect monsters in the New York subways.
Cronos (1993) one of Del Toro’s Spanish-language movies also features Ron Perlman and a clockwork scarab that turns people into vampires.
Pan’s Labyrinth another Spanish language movie set in Spain during the Civil War and features a young girl who follows a sprightly insect into a magical world almost as monstrous at the real one.
THE TRAILER
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