I went to see this travesty yesterday afternoon. After sleeping it off, I’m still annoyed about it.
I like most comic book movies, but this one almost as bad as The Hulk.
I never read the source material (in fact, I have not, to my knowledge, ever read a comic book, unless a compilation of The Far Side counts.) So I don’t know how faithful the movie was to its origins. That said, here is my litany of complaints:
The story was complete jibberish. 50% of the badguy lines were exposition explaining who or what they were or how some ridiculous thing happened, and it still made no sense. Every villain constantly relies on powers or secrets that they invent as they go along. I don’t have a problem with fantastic stories (it’s a comic book movie, after all) but I must admit I had no clue what was going on most of the time.
Hellboy is boring. He fights monsters and utters dumb superhero lines. Worse, all of the monsters he fights, except for the last one, are the same damn monster!
Every time a badguy dies, he or she comes back to life for no perceptable reason. Hellboy shoots the museum monster, he comes back to life. Rasputin gets killed by the czar, he comes back to life. Weird clockwork surgery-dood gets the shit kicked out of him, he comes back to life. Nazi dominatrix chick who looks like Tasha Yar dies in the secret underground Russian graveyard magic-hut, and comes back to life, just to die yet again. Villains who can’t be killed in any meaningful sense are not interesting.
The cinematic style is reminiscent of the even worse movie Underworld: Shoot everything through a blue filter and make it rain all the time. Also, 90% of the action takes place in a tunnel. (Granted, in Russia, there was snow. Ooooh.)
The only interesting character, the hot babe who makes fire, was given almost nothing to do except complain, perform one redeeming act, and die. And then come back to life.
The CG was cheesy.
Don’t get me started on the inacuracies involving the New York subway system.
I’m looking forward to X-Men 3 and Spiderman 2; those franchises have been pretty good so far. Here’s hoping Punisher will kick this movie’s ass.
Opinions are opinions, but did you hate the movie that much that you couldn’t have posted your review in the thread about the Hellboy movie that already exists? C’mon. The only reason I’m posting here is so that this thread doesn’t turn into a pile-on about how much people hate Hellboy and dissuade any fence sitters from going and seeing it. I enjoyed the movie immensely and saw it twice.
Are you seriously bitching about the dipiction of subways in NYC? With the number of movies that have fucked up the streets over the years, does their fucking up the subway really bug you so much that it deserves its own entry in your post?
Also, the “Nazi dominatrix chick” dies exactly once in the movie, and doesn’t come back, and the clockwork Nazi gets his ass kicked once in the movie (and doesn’t come back).
Oh, and I disagree with everything else in your post.
I respect your opinion as far as disliking the movie goes, but I wonder how much you paid attention. Go and check out the other thread on the Hellboy movie, there were very few questions regarding the plot, and the ones that were there were mostly of a clarification sort.
I like how Rasputin said that by killing him, Hellboy was bringing out a God or some such shit. Not so bad, right? But then this “God” is killed by five grenades in one of the most anti-climactic scenes in movie history.
I didn’t see that thread when I started the post; otherwise I would have posted it there.
Good for you. I didn’t enjoy it and only saw it once.
It’s called “humor.” I am a subway fan. You know, one of those dorks who knows the difference between an R-142A and an R-143. So I reserve the right to be annoyed at incorrect depictions of subways.
No, she quite clearly dies in the cave, and then wakes up conveniently after the good guys leave, just to say how much she’s going on enjoy going to Hell.
No, he was killed and being disected by the old dude, and then, for no particular reason comes back to life to kill the old guy.
I respect your opinion as far as disliking the movie goes, but I wonder how much you paid attention. Go and check out the other thread on the Hellboy movie, there were very few questions regarding the plot, and the ones that were there were mostly of a clarification sort.
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And like I said, the only reason I responded to your post at all was to let people know that there are opinions regarding the Hellboy movie that differ from yours.
Well then maybe you should have mentioned that.
Um, what cave? Are you talking about near the beginning of the movie when they resurrected Rasputin? If so, that was their guide who died, not Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.
Annddd, you weren’t watching the movie. He shut himself down after beating up Hellboy’s handler, and considering how careful they were to show what he was doing (you see him put his sword down, then lay down, then “unwind” himself) it was pretty obvious that his “death” was planned, and he sure as hell didn’t get beat by anyone at that point. And as far as his autopsy goes, all you saw Bruttenholm do was look over his body and make notes, he made precisely zero cuts, and even if he had he made it pretty clear that the clockwork ninja’s existence was supernatural (“his blood is dust”), so even then the Nazi ninja’s resurrection shouldn’t have been surprising.
Obviously we are not in spoiler box land anymore Toto.
Kroenen, the “clockwork guy”, is seriously maimed near the beginning when he is impaled against a rock column, but then is “found missing.”
Near the end of the subway fight sequence, he turns himself “off”. I.e., he hibernates. Not killed, or anything. The Prof. is unaware of this “feature” which leads to an Unfortunate Incident. Later, Kroenen appears to be killed in the pit with the coup de grace of a giant gear dropped on him. Whether that is an actual kill remains to be seen.
Note that Kroenen is shot many times thru the movie without harm. I wouldn’t count any of those as “kills”.
A lot of other issues can be similarly clarified.
An 80+% enjoyable film. Much better action-comic book film than any other released in recent years. A few plot oddities, e.g., Abe Sapien disappearing from the story a little over halfway thru. I can predict a lot of deleted scenes on the full DVD.
One can assume that the grenade belt contains special materials not available in US Army issue devices. Cf. the contents of the vial H.B. gives to Abe to protect him in the subway reservoir. Section 51 doesn’t have to limit itself to ordinary weaponry.
I am absolutely shocked that a movie starring Ron Perlman as a character called “Hellboy” who is a demon with his horns sawed off, carrying around a big gun and spouting cheesy one liners like a second-rate Bruce Campbell, fighting tentacle monsters, blade-swinging Rasputins and Nazi ninjas, would garner negative reviews.
This is the only part of your post I’ve agreed with.
Contrary to what the ads would have you belive, the premise of Hellboy (the character) isn’t “what if a demon were summoned to Earth and fought for good against paranormal evils?”, but “what if you took a bunch of the coolest aspects of pulp fiction and threw them all into one story?” The comic book has a demon who fights with a big gun, fish-men, pyro-kinetics, reanimated corpses, Rasputin, Nazis, and giant Lovecraftian monsters, but also adds stuff like talking cyborg gorillas, Nazi heads floating in jars (why did they cut that from the movie?), the Baba Yaga, evil leprechauns, sea demons, gun-toting monkeys, crime-fighting disembodied spirits, a gentle homonculous named Roger, and I forget all what else. Now, when you hear that, you have one of two reactions: either “that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” or “that’s the *coolest thing I’ve ever heard!”
I’m not saying that you didn’t get the movie, because that would be asinine. I’m just saying that the kind of movie you were expecting to see, Hellboy wasn’t even trying to be. It’s kind of like:
The stuff going on in Hellboy is called “action/horror/comedy.” Mike Mignola is a fan of horror stories, pulp comic fiction, and stuff that’s just plain fun and/or cool to draw. Hellboy (the comic) is an amalgam of all that. It doesn’t take itself seriously for one second, and the ironic thing is that a surprisingly intelligent and complex story comes out of all these disparate elements.
Not all of that carried over into the movie, but the spirit is there. The unfortunate thing is that the comic book is often silly, or thin, but it’s never trite or boring. The movie unfortunately relies too much on predictable and tired movie stuff, I can only guess in an attempt to give it context to people who are coming in with no idea what’s going on. The end result is good for fans, but misses the target for newcomers. Even newcomers who like the movie, haven’t yet had a chance to see how cool all this stuff can be when it all comes together (as in the comics).
Still, it doesn’t “suck balls.” :rolleyes: Seriously, there are so many terrible movies out there, it’s silly to be so dismissive of a movie that’s good-but-not-quite-great.
Also, I thought Ilsa the Nazi did die in the opening scene and was later re-animated, otherwise how was she the same age in the present day?
Incidentally, I don’t get complaints that the story was hard to follow – it was pared down to the barest essentials. Rasputin has power to raise dead, and wants to summon Elder Gods to destroy earth. Hellboy is demon whose right hand is key to summoning the Elder Gods. Rasputin summoned Hellboy to open the gate, was interrupted by US military, Hellboy grows up raised by the good guys, Rasputin returns and tries again with the exact same plan from the beginning of the movie. Simple.
I liked the Hulk. So I think you can already see where the rest of this post is going to go.
FYI, fairly faithful. And you should read some comic books. Maybe not Hellboy, if you didn’t like the movie, but there’re a lot of good comics out there that aren’t just guys in tights. (Of course, there’re a lot more that are guys in tights, if that’s your thing.)
Made a reasonable amount of sense to me. What in particular didn’t you understand? Maybe I can fill in some gaps.
I don’t see why that’s a bad thing. Imagine you’re watching a James Bond film, and Bond is in a fist fight with the bad guy. All of a sudden, a knife pops out of the front of the guy’s shoe, and he starts trying to kick Bond with it. Would you say, “Hey, wait a minute, we didn’t know he had a knife in his shoe!” It’s the same deal here. You know the bad guys have some sorts of weird powers. Do you think the movie should give you a laundry list of them at some point? Speaking for myself, I’d rather be surprised.
I thought the writing was decent. As for the fighting, well, you know: comic book movie and all. I disagree that he only fought the same monster, though: he kept fighting the same character: Sammael. His “super power” happened to be that every time he died, two more of him would be reborn. I thought this was cool: instead of a bunch of random monsters, he we get one specific creature who just keeps coming back.
It’s explained that this is the nature of the demon. Mythologically speaking, it’s not really all that different from the Learnan Hydra, from the myths of Hercules. Basically, the reasoning here is “it’s magic.” If that’s not enough for you, that’s cool, it’s not your kind of movie. But it’s not a flaw in Hellboy, a reason that’s been used in stories for thousands and thousands of years.
Dude, it’s freakin’ Rasputin. You know who he was, right? Shot, stabbed, poisoned, clubbed, drowned, still wouldn’t die? (yeah, I know, probably didn’t happen that way, but it’s a part of the genuine myth of the man, not something invented just for this movie.)
ftg explained this one already. He didn’t die (he didn’t even get seriously hurt) he was playing possum so he could smuggle himself into the good guy’s HQ.
She didn’t die. You’re mistaken in that. The weenie FBI guy kicked her in the head and knocked her out. He didn’t kill her. Although I have no doubt she’ll come back to life at some point anyway: she’s supposed to be Rasputin’s apprentice, it’s likely he taught her the same ressurection trick he’s used before.
I disagree with that in general principle. For one thing, it’s pretty much a staple of comic books that no one ever really dies forever. If you just can’t buy into that, that’s cool, but once again: comic book movie.
I only remember two scenes with rain: the opening scene during the War, and the funeral. I don’t recall much use of filters, although I could very easily be mistaken. I’d think a blue filter would’ve made the red Hellboy look pretty odd, though. As for the tunnels… Well, nature of the genre calls for a lot of the action to take place in crypts and such. Could’ve been more variation there though, I’ll grant you.
Yeah, that bothered me, too. According to the comic book, Mike Mignola, the writer, never knew what to do with her character, either. It showed in the movie. I did like the big bags under her eyes, for some reason.
Totally disagree. Thought the CG was fantastic.
I’ll take your word for it.
Ha! Don’t hold your breath.
Before Rasputin starts his ceremony, he kisses her and tells her he has taught her the “secret of eternal youth.”
Reviews have been largely positive, and are credited with boosting the better-than-expected grosses. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 77% positive reviews, and Ebert gave it 3.5 stars. I mostly agree with the OP, but critics don’t.
cough [SIZE=1]bullshit [/SIZE] cough. You’re defending the movie by making stuff up that you think the audience is supposed to assume? That’s a sign of terrible scriptwriting, and any ancient evil chaos god that gets blowed up by a belt of grenades is no ancient evil chaos god I’m going to worship.
Abe got messed up by one of the Sammaels in the movie (remember when they were trying to get him underwater in the sewers?) and then spends the rest of the movie suspended in a liquid tank like he’s Luke in The Empire Strikes Back.
Miller, good post. But do you have to keep saying “It’s a comic book movie”? If they made a movie version of Maus and someone didn’t get something in the plot would you say the same thing? I love that you pointed out that comics are more than just guys in tights, but still. I believe that it’s the genre that might cause difficulties in translation to screen, not the medium. I hope I’m not being overly anal.
I’d have to see the movie again, but they give out a bit of technobabble when they hand out the grenade belts. I forget what they say, but it could be that they describe them as being some sort of special explosives. It is established earlier that Hellboy uses special anti-demon bullets. Even if the screenplay doesn’t specify it, it’s not a terrible stretch to assume the grenades were similarly enhanced.
But, yeah, I agree, the ending was anti-climactic. Eh. No one said the movie was perfect.
