Corporate Line: When a Nazi mystical experiment goes awry in 1944, the target of a wizard’s spell, the child of Satan, Hellboy, is wrenched from his home, and adopted by the U.S. agents who intercept his arrival. Raised as a force of good, Hellboy grows up to be a full-fledged demon in the form of a man, complete with fierce red skin, a tail, a giant armored glove, and two large circles where his horns should be (if they ever grow back, Hellboy is quick to break them off). Now, the adult Hellboy, an investigator of the paranormal, is sent on a mission that brings him back in touch with the evil genius that started it all… that Nazi wizard (and just who is *he* anyway?). Accompanying him along the way are other agents, including Liz, a pyrokinetic woman Hellboy has feelings for, and Abe Sapien, a mysterious amphibian hominid…
The Good: Hellboy has a sense of humor. In a lot of ways he’s like Wolverine. Hellboy is rebelling. Hellboy has a chip on his shoulder. He’s big, strong, and likes to joke around when he beats things up. The difference? Hellboy is from hell. Wolverine is a plain old mutant.
Abe Sapien, very cool, fish man who is played by David Hyde Pierce and its funny because it takes a while to figure out whose voice is coming out that fish creature—then it strikes you, its Frasier’s brother!
The Bad: The script is terrible. All the build up for a lame battle leaves you high and dry. Not to mention boring enemies. Spiderman is a mortal and his enemies are on another level than these weaklings.
The film is deep with clichés of FBI agents, Nazis, men and women, paranormal, and so on. It’s not original, all but Hellboy. Watching it you can’t help but think what might have been done with it in the hands of the craftsmen behind X-Men or even Spiderman. Hellboy has some depth, but who really cares about anyone else? I’m sure once this makes $100 million we’ll see some better scripts for the sequels—at least let’s hope for a sequel and better scripts.
Frankly: Let’s just take this down to battles:
Hellboy vs. Spider-man – The winner: Hellboy—he’s big, strong, and from hell.
Hellboy vs. Wolverine – The winner: Hellboy—hands with swords versus concrete hand and again, he is from hell. Hellboy would bend Wolverine into a steel pretzel. But I bet the barbs would be great comedy.
Hellboy vs. the Hulk – The winner: Hellboy-he’s smarter and would probably come and kill David Banner while he was sleeping.
Hellboy vs. Superman – The winner: Is Hellboy immortal? Hmmm.
Finally: Let’s do a sequel, but please find another screenwriter. Although Hellboy isn’t better than the X-Men movies, or on par yet with Spiderman it is much better than the Hulk and sure to be a storied superhero movie franchise. Besides, Hellboy is cool. What else do you need to know?
+ Charlie Craine
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