Meh.
I thought Luke Goss played a great bad guy (whys is he not in more shit?!), but in a movie about a guy called Hellboy and his team of supernatural investigators from a visually creative guy like del Toro, I wanted more than singing and cat jokes and lessons about being accepted and Hellboy being such an extreme dick to everybody that he went from entertaining to hostile.
So, with that in mind, here are the 10 things I'd have rather seen Hellboy and the BPRD do in this film instead of "fighting" a revolution from the Fairie World (which actually turned out to just be an unimpressive brother and sister act, but I digress).
1. Traveling to Mars and punching giant worm creatures.
2. Bouncing around time after falling into a portal and having to punch demon-possessed ex-Presidents.
3. Warding off an invasion of vampires as thick as plague locusts.
4. Facing off with that crew in the first trade paperback who guard the Old Ones.
5. Being shrunk down into thumb tack-sized versions of themselves and having to escape the dangers an ordinary front yard can present.
6. Orgy. Under water.
7. Trapped under a small Arizona town in an underground prison that holds the worst villains they've ever had to bring in. During a power outage.
8. Sparring in Antarctica with a suddenly unfrozen army of 300 Spartans who, legend has it, are the best fighters the world has ever seen, and who were frozen there when they took a right instead of a left during one of their raids hundreds of years ago, and who were foretold to return on this/that very night.
9. Being in a movie written by Grant Morrison.
10 in the exact same film, but only if it were an animated feature in THIS style:
Skip it and reread the trades. I'm doing it right now thanks to TJ.
So, with that in mind, here are the 10 things I'd have rather seen Hellboy and the BPRD do in this film instead of "fighting" a revolution from the Fairie World (which actually turned out to just be an unimpressive brother and sister act, but I digress).
1. Traveling to Mars and punching giant worm creatures.
2. Bouncing around time after falling into a portal and having to punch demon-possessed ex-Presidents.
3. Warding off an invasion of vampires as thick as plague locusts.
4. Facing off with that crew in the first trade paperback who guard the Old Ones.
5. Being shrunk down into thumb tack-sized versions of themselves and having to escape the dangers an ordinary front yard can present.
6. Orgy. Under water.
7. Trapped under a small Arizona town in an underground prison that holds the worst villains they've ever had to bring in. During a power outage.
8. Sparring in Antarctica with a suddenly unfrozen army of 300 Spartans who, legend has it, are the best fighters the world has ever seen, and who were frozen there when they took a right instead of a left during one of their raids hundreds of years ago, and who were foretold to return on this/that very night.
9. Being in a movie written by Grant Morrison.
10 in the exact same film, but only if it were an animated feature in THIS style:
Skip it and reread the trades. I'm doing it right now thanks to TJ.
4 comments:
I know right? Even though I liked the drunk scene I was expecting more than a dual love story. Also, the characterizations seemed really off. I was really excited about the casting of Ron as HB at first, but now I don't think he really nailed the character. I hated how they changed Johann's character too. Ugh.
But, hey, the fairy black market or whatever it was looked cool.
I still haven't seen this, but I was very "meh" on the original Hellboy. I've seen it twice, and some things about it just don't work for me. The humor always seems forced, HB comes off as a Wolverine wannabe, and the love story rings a little hollow. Maybe I'm just getting old and curmudgeonly.
I was so excited about this film, because I really liked the first one, and this one had tons of weird Guillermo creatures, which I loved. But overall, it seemed like all the really cool things that were used were greatly underutilized.
Even though I agree that the books are definitely better than either film, I feel like the first one actually created a world where all of this crazy stuff made sense. The characters seemed three dimensional and had real emotions and issues. And then this film took a huge step backward. I felt like I was watching a Saturday-morning cartoon mixed with a high school melodrama and a little Harry Potter thrown in.
Also, baby Hellboy in the first one was awesome, but awkward pre-teen Hellboy in this one was super weird...
Oh, and I really want one of those tooth-fairy creatures. I love them.
TJ: Yes, I agree, Ron as HB has gotten old. Now when I see HB in the movies, I only see Ron in make-up. And they totally squandered opportunities with Johann. In general, I feel like they tried shoving a LOT of cliche in here. Sad.
Daniel: You're not getting too old, bro! It was a lot of been there, done that. I advise you to skip this one, cause it's a lot more of the same.
Sam: I love you
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