Sunday, July 20, 2008

Hellboy

Guillermo del Toro, USA, 2004
2.5 out of 4 stars

I decided to watch del Toro’s first adaptation of Mike Mignola’s comic book almost entirely because, probably owing to the success of Pan’s Labyrinth, he had been able to release another one. I figured that, if possible, I should try to avoid seeing the sequel first, and I would also try to see if I’d really be interested in paying $5-$10 for it. Well, I’ve read a few of the early issues of Mignola’s series, focused around a demon raised by humans who work for the government, along with his other paranormal colleagues, and I like the idea although I’ve never been blown away enough by it to seek out the whole series. One thing you notice in del Toro’s version is that there is basically no attempt to emulate the shadowy, impressionistic quality of Mignola’s art (perhaps this just wasn’t possible). Hellboy himself is after all bright red, and there was no willingness to alter his appearance into something more film-friendly or shadow-friendly (as they did in, say, the X-Men films, with the black uniforms replacing the bright costumes of the comics). Fidelity seems to be the bywords here, and it seems to have unfortunately been a limiting factor in the film’s success. The scenes added back in for the director’s cut may well have been worthwhile, but the augmentation probably should have been accompanied by some reduction.

Another hindrance seems to have been a disregard for pacing and an unwillingness to excise or trim languid, less-than-engrossing scenes. The “Nazi mysticism” opening is actually quite interesting, albeit campy, but the film starts to stumble as soon as del Toro moves us to the present day, and continues to kind of amble along after that. The fight scenes, when we get to them, are fun to watch and involving, but hindered here by the lack of variety, as Hellboy fights the exact same monster on at least three different locations.

Hellboy himself, as played by Ron Perlman, has a strong if overly laconic presence. Doug Jones complements him well as Abe Sapien, but most of the time Perlman is playing against his neophyte handler, John Meyers. Rupert Evans plays the ultimately pointless, but unduly-emphasized role of the would-be audience identification character with almost no spine or wit, and not that much intelligence either. I’m not sure if the studio forced del Toro to include a “regular guy” figure (for the first part of the film, he almost seems to be the main character!) but even if they did, they still could have done better than this (and there is at least one more interesting “regular guy” character present here). I should also mention that the archvillain, Rasputin (yes, that Rasputin) gets more and more ridiculous as his scenes get longer and you have to actually listen to him.

All that said, this very imperfect attempt made me want to see del Toro take another shot at doing it right this time, particularly in light, of course, of Pan’s Labyrinth. I am heartened by reports I have read indicating that there are many more monsters in the sequel, as I am by indications on IMDB that Evans is not returning (and in fact seems not to have made it in Hollywood at all). I do suspect, though, that seeing this film first may not actually have been necessary, as I’m sure the sequel was made with full knowledge that the original was not a great success.

Source: Sony director's cut DVD
18 Jul, 12:00 PM

No comments: