Hellboy (2004)
"Look, Sammy, I'm not a very good shot. But the Samaritan here uses really big bullets."
Dir. Guillermo Del Toro Rated: PG-13 Run Time: 2 hours 2 mins
Where can I watch? PlutoTV, Amazon Prime Rental ($3.49)
2004’s Hellboy released at a time before Guillermo Del Toro was a household name. Before Hellboy Del Toro had two major western releases: 1997’s Mimic, and 2002’s Blade II (which he did not write). Blade II is often mentioned on lists of the best comic book sequels of all time, and while much of that credit is given to Del Toro now, at the time he just didn’t have the credits that he does now. I would argue that the first time I’d heard the name Guillermo Del Toro in the league of “legendary director status” was upon the release of 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth, which would be nominated for Best Picture that year, so at the time of release, Hellboy wasn’t a movie that drew much of my attention, but upon seeing it in 2007 (when I watched it before the release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army), I realized that Guillermo Del Toro really did have the juice all along.
At the end of World War II, the Nazis try to turn the tide of the war by opening a portal to hell with the help of Rasputin (yes, Bartok the Bat’s friend). Once the portal is opened, the Allies attack, causing Rasputin to be absorbed in the portal. The Allies realize something came through when the portal was open: an infant demon with a right hand made of stone. He is adopted by a scientist and raised as his child. The soldiers dub him “Hellboy”. 60 years later, Hellboy works for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), hunting all sorts of creepy crawlies and exuding teen angst. While investigating a demon with the power of resurrection, Hellboy and the BPRD find themselves contending with Rasputin and his gang once again.
Hellboy has all the style and panache you’d expect from a Del Toro film (though I’d argue it’s relatively understated compared to its sequel, which really leaned in to his penchant for fantastical creature design), with colorful and odd characters who honor the world they are living in. It truly feels like a comic book movie, with a tone that feels closer to Joe Johnston’s The Rocketeer or Captain America: The First Avenger, rather than that of the later MCU (which seem to constantly be winking at the audience as if to say “we get how ridiculous this all is too, ok?”). Here, it’s just “ok, there’s a giant demon with a stone hand who works with a psychic fish monster and a human torch but is also subject to the bureaucracy of the alphabet agencies” and that is just the accepted reality that everyone lives in, and it allows the stakes to feel higher while also allowing characters in an illogical world to feel highly logical, and I cared about what happened to that world.
The heart of Hellboy is, well, Hellboy. Ron Pearlman plays him as a sort of petulant teenager, at both times sarcastic and deeply sensitive, masking his own insecurities with biting humor. He’s a hulking beast with a big gun and an even bigger fist, but he also is obsessed with cats and longs for his ex-girlfriend, Liz (Selma Blair). He loves his “father”, Dr. Broom (Jon Hurt), and desperately seeks his approval at all times. This love, both for Liz and for Dr. Broom, will end up being the driving force for the latter half of the movie, when Hellboy must decide who, or what, he’s willing to sacrifice for the people he loves. The movie is serious when it should be, light when it should be, intense when it should be, and it feels like every line delivered gives us some sort of character development that is important for understanding this world we aren’t familiar with. Even Hellboy’s relationship with his main bureaucratic antagonist, Manning (Jeffrey Tambor), becomes one of begrudging respect, with Manning softening his tone and teaching Hellboy the proper way to light a cigar.
Hellboy released at a time when CGI was fast becoming the dominant visual force in movies, but Hellboy utilizes a smart mix of practical and computer generated imagery that doesn’t make you feel like you are simply watching a computer game. Hellboy himself, for instance, is 100% practical, with Ron Pearlman spending 4 hours in makeup every day to achieve the look. Samael, the resurrecting monster, is also practical, utilizing 4 men to operate its body. There are elements and shots that are done using CGI, sure, and some flourishes here and there, but for those elements that would be on screen the majority of the movie’s run time, those are all done practically. Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), the fish monster, has some CGI enhancements, but Jones was really wearing the suit and in heavy makeup to pull the character off. There’s an inventiveness on display that just can’t be reliably pulled off using only a computer.
Hellboy is an eminently watchable comic book movie, and it’s refreshing to see a character not spawned from Marvel or DC get some screen time. Speaking of “spawned”, I would love to see Del Toro take on a Spawn movie, because he has a knack for tone that both honors the source material and makes the movie palatable for general audiences. Hell, the man made a movie where a woman has sex with a fish, and that movie won Best Picture at the Academy Awards! If anyone can do it, he can. He’s a true nerd, a total weirdo (in the best way), and a hell of a filmmaker.
Hellboy’s sequel, The Golden Army, is considered even better than the original. I haven’t seen it since it came out, but I remember liking it. I’m going to revisit soon, and I’ll let you know what I think.