Hellboy

Hell Boy is a near classic of great proportion as played by the underrated Ron Perlman(Beauty and the Beast ) Perlman is an actor you probabley wouldn't recognize as he has had to wear so much facial make up in his career but he imbues 'Hell Boy' with a real humanity and a scathing wit ."How am I ever gonna get a girl when I drive around in a garbage truck ? " John Hurt as his father has little to do but that he loves Hell Boy there is no doubt having rescued him on the night he came from hell . Dr. Broom adopts the boy and they live at the Center For Paranormal Studies in New Jersey with a fish like creature and a fire starter girl who Hell Boy loves to pieces . I hope that this becomes a tent pole series for the studio as I would like to see Hell Boy in other situations . Five of 5 stars for 'Hell Boy'

What a cracking little film this is, haven't seen it since the cinema in 04' and it's better now than then with some sensational effects. Great script with Ron doing a splendid job. I've never read comics as I don't like them, but I'd go so far as to say, apart from Batman, this is the best comic book to movie tie in ages... not cheesy, just the right amount of comedy in it and good solid acting. Music could've done with a alittle more inspriation, but this film looks great with some lovely lit scenes especially when hellboy is in the snow, he looks fanastic ;-)

Can't wait for the sequel Pug

Alright, so seeing as how I'm comment #430, I don't imagine that anyone is going to read my review, or that anyone will be encouraged to watch Hellboy because of anything that I'll say. There are others who have written short novels on IMDb about what a great movie this is, so there's no point in me doing more of the same.

Suffice it to say that this movie is beautifully shot, well acted (with the exception of the kid who plays the FBI agent) and directed by masterful Guillermo Del Toro with style and grace. It's not for everyone, and those who are fans of the comic will probably enjoy it more than your average moviegoer. But if you like movies like The Crow or Darkman, this one is right down your dark little alley.

Hellboy is self-conscious, perhaps, but in the best ways possible. Actually, it's more due to writer/director Toro being very aware of what makes up the conventional bits to every sense character-wise to the world of a comic-book, but also what can be entertaining as well, than it is just to having it being a Hellboy movie where the comic-book Hellboy already exists IN this world (guy sees the Hellboy comic, looks up, it's Hellboy!). We get the tough-as-nails, dryly witty, and possibly ticking-time-bomb hero in Hellboy, a deadly serious villain in Rasputin (yes, Rasputin, with a blonde Nazi as his evil side-kick no less), the young apprentice to the hero (Ruper Evans as John Meyers), the hero's love interest (Liz Sherman played by Selma Blair), the father figure (John Hurt's Professor), and the reluctant 'boss' (Jeffrey Tambor), not to mention the plucky side mutant in Abraham (Doug Jones) AND a magnificent creature in that hard-ass slug. They're all there, bright as day (or dark, depending on point of view), and it all works wonderfully due to Toro running with it all head on. It's not done in a way that's meant to pander to the audience, either, but just to have fun with the conventions, to see what makes them all crackle and pop under big-time special effects. It's not quite a guilty pleasure because Toro is also a smart craftsman.

And craftsman just as much as director, he crafts this world where the creatures (which were and still are Toro's forte) are fierce and radically charged, whether they're crucial to the picture like Rasputin's rabid, rapidly hatching slug-monsters that can only be killed one or two ways, or if it's just a minor creature like the zombie Russian corpse that leads a little of the way when Hellboy and his crew are in the main hideout of the villains ("I was better off dead!"). Toro is sensitive to the characters alongside this, and makes them all pretty believable- and I say pretty cause it's all a little simple, yet effective, in the main thrust of Hellboy's emotional core being about Liz and if she may or may not go for John over him- and doesn't dumb it down too much or contrive the relationships for the audience. It's a good balance, because there is A LOT of action in Hellboy, in fact probably at least a 60% allotment to either Hellboy fighting the monsters after him (usually in the subway, or in the Russian castle), or with the possibly un-dead assassin in the mask and leather who marks as one of the fiercest forces in comic book movies.

So, fan-boys rejoice, because Hellboy should, and hopefully will, have everything one looks for in a brawny, high-octane entertainment where humor isn't confused with cheesiness (Perlman is too well focused as a possible anti-hero to get into any of that, as he makes that hugely built red lug a very real being), and the action isn't over-done with a tongue-in-cheek. Not that Toro doesn't flirt with having goofy things in his picture, like a moment where Hellboy has to save a box of kittens from the grasp of the slug-monster. But they're earned moments among a very tightly constructed story where human evils in history and the bizarre in what is in the facts (Hitler into the occult, Rasputin's very long death) into a comfortably understood framework of comic-book clichés that never get too old when done right. Bottom line, can't wait for number 2!

Great comic series, good times on screen. Del Toro doesn't capture the shadowiness and the Gothic art of the books, but does the get the heart of the material, and plays it well between lighthearted comedy, lighthearted action, and as much weirdness(talking corpses, psychic merman, pyroknesis, Rasputin, clockwork Nazi assassins, and Cthulu, to name a few of the flourishes), as the story can handle.

It is a super-hero movie, but one that mixes in occult myths, weird tales, and conspiracy theories, into a fine entertainment brew. Can't wait to see the next installment in the "The Golden Army". One of the best comic to film adaptations, not for style, but for heart and for fun's sake.