Hellboy (no spoilers in OP)

Cafe Society
21

I saw it this evening and enjoyed it throughly as a solid popcorn movie. Some of you Hellboy fundamentalists are more rigid and pissy than a room full of blue haired Baptists when it comes to adapting expository storylines to a movie format. You can practially hear the arch tones of the Simpson’s Comic Book Guy coming through in your posts.

Chill… it’s just a movie, stop angstifying about the details it left out or didn’t develop completely from the comic book series. As a movie it works quite well.

22

I dunno about some people, but the scene in the beginning where the Nazis are summoning the Key reminded me a lot of Raiders of the Lost Ark. In fact, I half-expected to see Indiana Jones tied to a pole nearby screaming, “DONT LOOK! DONT LOOK!” :slight_smile:

It was an okay movie. The monsters looked too alien and not demonic enough. And some other things bugged me too- like how they are carting in huge bowls of food and stuff for Hellboy to eat, but they never show him eating any of it :confused: was it just for the cats?

I thought Kronen was cool. I had some people tell me that wasn’t quite was he was like in the comic book, but pretty spiffy nonetheless. He had the Darth Vader breathing-thing down for sure. But what was his gimmick about being able to stay alive? They’d shoot him, and sand would come out, and Broom kind of implied that they only reason he was alive was because he was a very very very bad man with a lot of willpower (I wonder if having no eyelids had something to do with it? eeeuurrggghhh makes me want to compulsively rub my eyes right now! :eek: )

23

I haven’t read the books, but I’ve seen some of the free stuff online. I’m interested in the concept but not really informed about the storyline of the books, and I liked the movie.

The doctor said that Kronen was so old his blood had turned to dust. Personally, I think the idea of a WW2-era steampunk clockwork cyborg ninja Nazi is pretty neat (I had fun figuring which of those would be the noun and which would be the adjectives). But it seems that he pulled out his “heart” (the thing he winds up before going berserk) before lying down next to the dead agent so he could get taken back to the base. How did he get back up again hours later?

24

Does anyone know who played Kronen? His fighting style reminded me of Ray Park, but I don’t think that was him. Too slender.

25

I got the distinct impression that Kronen was alive only because Rasputin kept him alive.

Broom: “I see the puppet, but where is the puppetmaster?”

26

Would a half-hour animated tv series do?

27

I knew very little about the series before seeing the movie, but I was super excited when I saw the previews. I love Ron Pearlman, and thought he did an amazing job, and the visual aspect of the movie was great…

With that said, though, it just didn’t seem to work all that well for me. Especially in the opening sequence, it seemed very hard to destinguish what type of movie they wanted to make. Was it a serious flick, or a comedy? With the premise, I was hoping it was going to be a comedy along the lines of Men in Black in terms of its humor level, which when done correctly, can handle the serious bits (I loved the “I wish I could change this” moment, for example). Still, it just seemed like the mix was off, you know?

Still, I enjoyed it and had fun, so I don’t feel bad about spending my money to see it.

Just out of curiosity, did anyone else notice the big blooper? When Hellboy’s walking into Kronen’s room towards the end, they switched his hands. His left hand was suddenly his stone hand, and his right hand was his normal one. Probably just a case of switched film, but it lasted for a good 20/30 seconds or so, and was really obvious, but I seem to be the only one that noticed.

28

Exactly. I interpreted the “terrible will” being referred to not as the clockwork Nazi’s (ie the puppet) , but Rasputins.

29

Well, I’m as big a fan of the comic series as there is, and I thought the movie was great. Not perfect, by any means, but a very good adaptation. Of course it’s going to be distilled Hellboy, but that’s just what happens when you make a movie of a big story – parts get combined/simplified/left out. I thought that the movie did as good a job as possible of getting across the idea of the character, the tone of the story, the art design, and the basic plot of Seed of Destruction, while making concessions for those who came into the movie with no idea who these characters are.

The good:
The art direction was right on. Especially all the broken statuary and ruined frescoes in the background of everything. So many of the shots looked exactly right, exactly what a panel from Hellboy would look like if it were transported to the real world.
Ditto with the prop design. I really liked Rasputin’s glove at the beginning.
Good sense of humor; there were a lot of moments that were totally unexpected and delivered perfectly – especially the box of kittens, and Hellboy hitting Meyers with a rock.
I’m glad that they kept it to one storyline without trying to tackle too much. But the squid monsters did get a little repetitive.
Clockwork Nazi bad guy == awesome.

The not-so-good:
Too much exposition. I was afraid of this, and it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, but there were several bits of dialogue that I thought would’ve been fine to just leave out and show some faith in the audience.
I didn’t like the attempt to give a nice, tidy theme to the whole movie – Liz deciding between the freaks and a normal life; Hellboy’s desire to fit in. The whole “what’s my place in this crazy world” theme is trite and made it seem a little like a Disney coming-of-age movie.
Along the same lines, I didn’t like Hellboy’s being in hiding. One of the cool things about the character is that he just is what he is, and he feels no shame in it. Again, it made all the characters seem too simplistic and cliche.
The Nazi woman whose name I forget ended up just being completely bland. She was a lot more interesting and mysterious in the comic (and had a much cooler death, to boot).

It’s clear that Del Toro had a lot of love for the comic, and it all came through. I just think a few too many concessions were made for the sake of making it a movie. Based on the reviews I’ve read from people who’d never read the comic, though, maybe that was necessary. All in all, I liked it a lot and want to see it again. I’m not sure I’d want to see it turn into a franchise, at least without a different writing crew.

Re: Amazing Screw-on Head

Hot Damn! That’s the best thing I’ve read all week! I’m a little concerned that Mignola isn’t writing it, but the concept is so goofy that it shouldn’t be that hard to mess up. I’d been hoping that the movie would be so popular it would spawn a Hellboy animated series, but in a lot of ways this is better: there’s no continuity to screw up, there’s no confusion as to whether it’s supposed to be a comedy (as there is with Hellboy), we still get Mignola’s art style (assuming they don’t screw that up as Atlantis did), and there’s a lot more potential for new stories & ideas. I can’t wait!

30

I saw this last night. I had no experience with the comic, and overall, I didn’t hate it.

It would have been better with Meyer as a more interesting character or actor. I was bored when he was on-screen. He did remind me of Wesley Crusher though.

I felt like I was lost for a lot of the second act of the movie, but I may have been not paying enough attention.

At the end, I wasn’t clear whether Hellboy was actually bringing his girl back or just talking to the dead like he did with the other corpse. The latter would’ve been much more tragic.

I didn’t really get the whole Kronen/Rasputin connection. In particular, who was who. For some reason I though the clockwork guy was Rasputin for most of the movie. And why did the clockwork guy come back to life after he was autopsied?

I agree that the Nazi woman was completely wasted. She was interesting at the beginning, forgotten for most of the movie, and boring at the end.

Modern comics tend to be thought through, and so motivations and such are much better. I felt that was underlying in this movie, but never expressed. Like someone mentioned the sand thing when the clockwork guy got shot. What was that? If you were doing it from scratch, you would have just made him clockwork, so I presume that has a backstory in the comic, so why couldn’t we get a line of exposition about it?

31

I’ve not read the comic. I enjoyed getting to know the characters, I thought Perlman did a great job and the designers effectively integrated HB into the “real world.” The action sequences were OK, though the last third of the movie felt a bit flat to me.

Normally I pay no mind to product placement in the movies, but they seemed particularly jarring in this one. Since you are expected to suspend disbelief to a greater degree in a comic movie, the “Baby Ruth” and “Bud Light” packages seemed particularly out of place.

And filmmakers need to declare a moratorium on the “character flying backwards through the air and smashing into a solid wall” shot. Far too much of that lately.

32

Just saw it with Mrs. Evil Captor and Teen Evil Captor. We all liked it. None of us had read the comic, but it was a fun flick to watch. No slow moments, no dullness. Pearlman was great, he really lit up the role. I wouldn’t mind this turning into a franchise, though I think when you start out fighting Cthulhu and friends, other villains are going to seem a lot less scary by comparison.

33

I read the first two TPBs last year, wasn’t all the impressed with it, really. Based on all the hype around the movie, I bought the third TPB last night, and finally “got it.” So, I went out, saw the movie today. Liked it a lot. Didn’t see too many plot holes in it, which was refreshing. They didn’t explain every little thing, which was cool. For example, how did Kroenen come back? Dunno, but since he obviously “killed” himself in the first place to gain entry to the secret magic FBI base, it follows that he had some sort of back up device to re-animate him once he was inside. Note to future bureau agents: decapitate all future specimens before commencing autoposy.

This movie gave me very much the same vibe I got of the first X-Men movie: the plot suffered somewhat because of the need to introduce all the characters. Which is why I’m really looking forward to the sequel (of course there’s going to be a sequel), where they can get right to the action without all the introductions. Hope they bring back Rasputin, too. Ain’t no way he’d be killed by anything so puny as an Elder God tearing eating its way out of his torso.

34

Oh, yeah, two quick questions:

I came into the movie a little late, and I’m wondering if I missed anything. Don’t think I did, but I walked in just when the camera was focusing on Kroener and someone said something about him being “Hitler’s deadliest assassin.” I don’t think I missed anything at all important, but I want to be sure.

Also, Guillermo del Toro: any relation to Benicio?

35

Lessee. There was an opening bit with words on the screen about how there were five evil older gods who might come back one day (I shamefully admit that I can’t remember their name and can’t look it up because I loaned out my entire collection of Hellboy TPBs), then you here Bruttenholm in a voiceover pondering about what makes a man, then they cut to the GIs creeping up on the Nazis and Bruttenholm is being given a ribbing about “parabnormal” stuff, and then you came in. You missed nothing important, and the time you’ve spent reading this paragraph is probably longer than the part of the film you missed.

I’ve seen the movie twice, and as for Kroenen coming back to life, the first time I thought it was some sort of a timed thing he planned for, the second time I focused more on the “I see the puppet, but where’s the puppeteer” comment by Bruttenholm and assumed that he was brought back to life by Rasputin.

And I have no information on the del Toro family tree.

I give the movie an 8.0. Very entertaining, largely faithful to the comic, but there were a few things that I wish it had done more like the comic, such as Hellboy suffering less angst. But, hey, it worked in the movie.

36

I dug it. At least in an Xmen 1 kinda way. I’m hoping for a tighter, less exposition-a-rific Hellboy 2.

My biggest gripe? A cliche which needs to be retired:

When Hellboy is broken from his “spell” by a friend pleading for him to remember who he really is. I can’t count how many movies/ tv shows this has occured in. Seems to be the official screenwriting tool to break a hero from a trance is just to have them about to do the worst thing ever and then have someone plead with them to “just remember”. Works every annoying time.

37

BTW, I just noticed that my 666th post coincidentally occured in a HELLboy thread. :eek:

38

Agreed. It would’ve been much better if Meyers had hit him upside the head with a shovel or something instead.

39

I noticed that when they introduced the grown up Hellboy, they were playing Tom Waits’ Heart Attack and Vine. A little later they played Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

40

When the firestarter girl blows up the care facility does everyone (except her) get fried and die, or not?