Hellboy Movie Review
April 03, 2004 | 
21 Comments
Hellboy rocked. I could end this review right there. This is really my kind of movie. I had high expectations, having loved Guillermo del Toro’s Blade 2, and they were exceeded.
I’ve been reading Hellboy for years and as with any comic to movie adaptation I was very interested as to how it would turn out. I was hoping against hope the it wasn’t going to be another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (which I did enjoy despite how far from the comic it was). It wasn’t. It turned out great.
Based pretty loosely on Seed of Destruction, this movie does a very good job of capturing the feel of the comic, even though it changes things around a bit.
Of particular interest is the casting of Ron Pearlman. It was perfect. Perfect. I can’t picture anyone else playing Hellboy. He’s not going to win any awards for his performance, but I think I can safely say that he’s pulled of probably the most accurate portrayal of a comic book hero ever.
Those jokers who cast Keanu Reeves as John Constantine in Hellblazer should take note. What a farce that is. Constantine is British through and through, it’s essential to the story and to the character and they made him American? Yeah, I don’t have high hopes for that one.
Back to Hellboy. It’s got everything a good comic / action flick should have. It’s got a fairly tight plot, a great central character, some killer side-kicks (Abe Sapien was done very well), a few good fight scenes, some awesome one-liners and lots of eye popping special effects.
The only downside I can see was that it was a bit slow at the start as they introduced all the characters. Hopefully they’ll be doing a sequel and can concentrate more of the story now that we all know the central players. Kind of how X-Men 2 was better than the first.
If you like this kind of movie you’ll get a real kick out of Hellboy — if you don’t you probably won’t like it as much, but I think many would still enjoy it.
My rating: 4 out of 5.
Filed under: Review
Comments
1. Lea said:
Yes. Ron Pearlman was superb as our lovable demon. For someone who’s got a bazillion layers of make-up on him, he emotes amazingly! My favorite scene: the love letter scene. ;-)
Posted on April 3, 2004 02:17 PM | #
2. Ste Grainer said:
Awesome. I had hoped to catch Hellboy at the special screening in Austin but couldn’t make it. Hopefully I’ll get to see it sometime this coming week. Van Helsing looks promising, too - did they show previews for that prior to Hellboy? (I’ll sheepishly admit that I hadn’t read any of the Hellboy comics until this morning when I read “The Corpse” online.)
Posted on April 3, 2004 02:19 PM | #
3. Jack said:
Anybody else see an uncanny resemblence between Hellboy and Ted Danson? :D
Admittedly, I’ve only seen the trailer. But this review has definately raised my interest in the film.
Posted on April 3, 2004 02:19 PM | #
4. Keith said:
Lea - The love letter scene was great. It’s those little “awkward” parts that make Pearlman’s performance so good.
Ste - They didn’t show a preview for Van Helsing. I wasn’t too sure about that movie until I watched Apple exclusive trailer – now I’m pretty excited for it.
The comics are great, you should check them out. There is a huge nod to The Corpse in the movie as well.
Posted on April 3, 2004 02:28 PM | #
5. patrick h. lauke said:
although i was underwhelmed by blade 2, due to the completely different atmosphere compared to the first one, i am looking forward to this once it hits UK cinemas. been following the extensive coverage over at CHUD http://www.chud.com over the last few months, and it does look like one hell of a ride (although my girlfriend gave me that “you damn geek” look when i excitedly showed her the trailer back when it appeared online)…
Posted on April 3, 2004 03:47 PM | #
6. dotsara said:
Ron Perlman is the man. Will have to go see this one again. (:
I’m pretty new to Hellboy (only got my first tpb [“Seed of Destruction”! no less] last July), but I’m definitely up for getting more of the series. Any recommendations?
Posted on April 3, 2004 08:01 PM | #
7. Andrei Herasimchuk said:
What the heck happened to the FBI Director?!? They just leave him down there?
Also, Keith… time for you to add an RSS Comments Feed! Por favor?
Enjoyed the movie. A wee bit slow pacing at times, but still very much a great popcorn flick.
Posted on April 3, 2004 10:23 PM | #
8. Keith said:
I was wondering the same thing? What happened to that guy?
I’ll look into the RSS feed for comments. Never thought about it before, but I guess it could be very useful.
Posted on April 3, 2004 10:29 PM | #
9. C. Ellison said:
You obviously left the theatre before the credits ended otherwise you would know what happened to the FBI Director :)
The movie was great fun.
Posted on April 4, 2004 09:53 PM | #
10. Andrei Herasimchuk said:
Guilty as charged… now tell me what happened!
Posted on April 5, 2004 12:13 AM | #
11. Lea said:
Tsk tsk tsk. Any good moviegoer knows to stay until after the credits for movies such as these…
///SPOILER///
The FBI Director is still stuck where he is, waiting, and he’s looking around fearfully and declaring, “Hey, you know, I’m still here!”
:-)
Posted on April 5, 2004 10:20 AM | #
12. Scrivs said:
The FBI director was completely useless till the end and the other agent, I forget his name already, I just call him fairy was useless to me as well. Clay was the man!
Posted on April 5, 2004 01:01 PM | #
13. Zelgadas said:
Holy crap. What a kick-ass movie. I went into it without ever having read a Hellboy comic before (heck, I hadn’t even heard of Hellboy before the trailers started airing), and it completely knocked my socks off! I’ve just finished reading a bunch of the online issues, and I must say I’m a convert. I’d like to get Seed of Destruction, just so I can see how close the movie is to the source materia.
Oh, and about Ron Pearlman’s rocking, I completely agree. He did, indeed, rock.
Posted on April 5, 2004 05:42 PM | #
14. Baseer Ahmed said:
Hello…I haven’t seen such a greatest movie like “HELLBOY” in my life, and I am impressed. Wow I mean wow what a great movie. The action scenes were superb with some ass kicking actions. Hellboy movie is definitely the Hollywood greatest movie ever. I think the movie will be amazing if the Hollywood makes the movie with the very best of the best Visual effects. After watching the movie, I Baseer Ahmed felt like I myself is “Hellboy.” As my Baseer Ahmed opinion, I think “HELLBODY” is the best movie ever. Period. –WOW–
Posted on April 10, 2004 01:59 PM | #
15. Rumoku said:
I liked the movie but I thought that the ending was a bit anti-climatic. I mean, there’s all that buildup and after everything’s over I can’t help but say “that’s it?”. Am I the only one who felt like that? Seriously, I think that the ending could have been a little bit more…well…big.
Posted on April 17, 2004 07:23 AM | #
16. BobbyCaustic said:
i am the biggest hellboy fan i know, and i’ve been into the comics forever, and i moved to the u.k. about three weeks before it came out in the u.s. so i have to wait until september to see it. GODDAMMIT. but i’m glad people like it.
Posted on April 17, 2004 03:30 PM | #
17. FirstRay said:
Who did the voice of Abe Sapain? And it doesn’t belong to the actor Doug Jones.
Posted on April 20, 2004 01:52 PM | #
18. karl said:
Hey FirstRay,
I didn’t get to check in the credits, but I think the voice of Abe Sapien was the guy who plays Niles in ‘Frasier’ - sounded very familiar!
K.
Posted on May 17, 2004 07:02 AM | #
19. Francie said:
My husband and I just rented Hellboy last night - just LOVED it - but had one BIG question -why did Broom hire Myers? We kept waiting for some great secret or power to be revealed, but all he did was hit on Liz… And Abe Sapien’s voice was dubbed by David Hyde Pierce, Niles on Frazier.
Can’t wait for the sequel!
Posted on September 22, 2004 07:28 AM | #
20. Keith said:
I think the only reason Meyers was in there was to give the viewer a point of reference and help us identify with a character. Maybe a secret will be revealed in the sequel, but it’s hard to say.
The Meyers character, as far as I can tell, did not exist in the comic at all.
Posted on September 22, 2004 10:15 AM | #
21. VINNY said:
I completely loved the movie HELLBOY, RON PERLMAN
was ass kicking in this movie iam a big fan of RON after this movie
This guy really brought the life in the character
I cant wait for the sequel
posted on 11/8/2004
Posted on November 8, 2004 04:10 PM | #
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