"How big can it be?"
In this wildly fantastic tale based on the comic book anti-hero by writer/artist Mike Mignola, "HellBoy" skyrockets a brand new interest in the 13yr old franchise as envisioned by the wildly creative mind of writer/director Guillermo del Toro.
HellBoy, or HB is played perfectly by Ron Pearlman, who's makeup effects transform him into HellBoy without the use of digital effects. He's a demon from hell that escaped through a portal that was opened by Nazis under the leadership of the infamous Russian Mystic Grigori Rasputin (Karel Roden) off the coast of Scotland in 1944. After an ambush by a small army squadron, the young Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm (Kevin Trainor) adopts the demon to raise as his own. But HellBoy is so much in attitude your average tough guy that he's hard to deal with, but easy to tick off...especially since he has a great love of cats, and an equally great desperation to fit in with everyone else. Ron's makeup didn't only transform him in to HellBoy, but even his acting style matched the character perfectly years prior to pre-production. Even without all the makeup he easily resembles the guy, and not to mention the voice. Ron got everything right on here.
However, HB's forced to live in the HQ of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.) where he's frequently called upon to save the country from monsters and other bizarre paranormal occurrences which BPRD's FBI representative Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) must explain in comically pathetic excuses. Abe Sapien (Doug Jones/David Hyde Pierce{voice}) is an Icthyo Sapien whom resembles a merman crossed with an amphibian. He's HB's friend and fellow BPRD member who accompanies HB on his exploits, and proves useful with his gift of telepathy and psychometry. He loves Victorian age music and is very neat, while HB is the beer drinking couch potato. So the pairing of the characters is like taking the comic relief of a story and centering around them the entire time.
Although it's not to be with the extremely uninteresting, and unentertaining FBI Agent John Myers (Rupert Evans) whose introduced to HB as his new partner. John's attraction to fellow BPRD Agent Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) annoys HellBoy and creates constant tension between the two throughout the film, with no real resolution to their problems by film's end. Though being as boring of a guy as Myers is, then this wasn't surprising. Plus this love triangle situation was more of a plot device that you put in a sequel to spice things up, and not in the introduction piece where it detracts attention from the title character. But ultimately, telling the story mainly from John Myers' perspective instead of HellBoy's was a near fatal mistake, as this is the first time HB's been introduced to film audiences commercially, and it would've done better to tell the story through HellBoy's eyes, rather than through those around him. Especially since John Myers isn't a member of the HellBoy universe, making it even more awkward and off for the film, as we don't need or want an outsider introducing us to all these characters. After all, it's a 122 minute movie, so we don't have time to go through all that crap.
Liz Sherman has left the BPRD 13 times to check into a mental hospital to regulate her fire starting capabilities which make her a very AWOL character throughout, and is treated like the 'extra special' person who's not unique in comparison to other equally annoying characters like her whom hog screen time and beg sympathy indirectly from the other characters throughout. As the film progresses into the climax, she's still treated as the 'extra special' type of character who hasn't developmed much since we met her, and is unneccesarily becoming all the more important to HB in a story that shouldn't be about her. Selma did a great job at nailing her down, but Liz was nothing great, and once again, yet another distraction from the film's title character while still being a conflicting person in HB's life.
The character who scored big points from me besides Abe and HB was Nazi Lieutenant Colonel Karl Ruprecht Kroenan (Ladislav Beran). He's Rasputin's right hand man, Hitler's best assassin, and leader of the Thule Occult Society. He wears a black leather trench coat and gas mask throughout the movie, for he may or may not be diseased, germaphobic, or freakish in appearance. It's just a mystery, and he doesn't talk either. His blades make him a skilled fighter whom despite playing henchman to the lead villain commands more presence than him, and is much more badass!!!
And finally, John Hurt plays the aging Trevor Trainor, whom HB has respected more than anyone in his life, and throughout the movie. Despite Trevor's decency and kindness, HB still remains the ever sarcastic anti-hero with all the great one liners and 'great ideas' to stop the bad guys. It's like a cartoon with a darker twist on it.
Cinematographer Guillermo Navarro did an excellent job at capturing the wondrous imagination of Guillermo del Toro, but most of it consists of dark, claustrophoic settings which fail at times to get true bewilderment to what we're used to in del Toro's films. Editor Peter Amundson spliced the semi-slow scenes together nicely, but it even seems too slow in the action sequences. So overall, the visuals and pace of the film could've been better.
So overall, while this first installment in the HellBoy franchise may have some big flaws, the characteristics of HellBoy, Trevor, Abe Sapien, and the badass that is Karl Ruprecht Kroenan make up for it. A must see at least once for just the characters alone.
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