Hellboy
2004, United States
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro
Story: Peter Briggs, Guillermo del Toro
Notes: Based on the comic book by Mike Mignola
Like many movies, Hellboy had me engaged early with a fanciful premise and a snappy, action-packed opening; also like many movies, once the game had been named I found myself drifting, looking for shinier objects. Hellboy is a competent-enough romp through familiar territory, with the biggest thing going for it del Toro behind the lens. He lends his typical visual creativity to an otherwise shallow and goofy action flick. The best idea in the film comes in the first five minutes, where a demon is summoned from…somewhere (it could be Space Station Mir) through a failed Nazi ritual. In this and other scenes Hellboy borrows liberally from the Indiana Jones movies, but let’s be honest, one series starring occult-obsessed Nazis demands, by its mere existence, as many more as possible.
The rest of the movie consists of a lot of running, jumping, shooting, and punching, with the occasional bleeding, throwing, smoking, and talking. Hellboy is good at each and every activity. There are obligatory scenes of bridges falling apart, creatures coming back to life, and huge monsters that prove size matters almost not at all. It all doesn’t amount to a whole lot, with the occasional zing and a creature or two that might linger in the memory.
Style: 6
Del Toro’s creatures are always a joy to watch; they’re complex and believable despite being so alien. The design of a master assassin is particularly good. Unfortunately there are only a handful of them in total, and the movie’s Big Bad is disappointingly generic.
Substance: 4
The dialogue is passable with a line or two that rises above mediocrity. Hellboy is a typical action hero, reeling off witticisms while dodging bullets and chomping on cigars, which at this stage in my movie-viewing career is a distinctly negative phenomenon. The story elements are also incredibly generic.
Overall: 5
You expect writers to innovate on at least some level in preparing a script like this, but Hellboy connects the dots perfectly in sequence. That might be great for a coloring book, but I would have appreciated a little more zigging or zagging. At least now I feel prepared for Hellboy 2 – assuming I can summon the desire to go see it.
