Movie Pick

Hell Hath No Fury…

originally published April 7, 2004

HELLBOY (PG-13) A pleasantly contradictory combination of terms is the name for our latest action hero; Hellboy is a giant red demon with a Schwarzenegger physique,

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sawed-off horns, and soft spot for kittens. I suppose you could say that much is contradictory to our expectations of the superhero with this extraordinary vigilante. Based on the popular comic book by Mike Mignola, Hellboy is a fantasy about a demon stolen from the depths of Hell by Nazi's during World War II. Hoping to turn the tides of the war to their favor with such a destructive creature, disaster is averted when American troops crashed their hell-raising party and adopted the crossed-over "hellboy" for their own purposes. Sixty-years later, Hellboy works for the United States government under the division for paranormal research. He's the muscle for dealing with, as his adoptive father and boss Professor Bruttenholm (John Hurt) puts it, "things that go bump in the night."
Hellboy, played by the unmistakable Ron Perlman, is a demon tortured by his inability to fit in (symbolized by his shaved horns), his confinement, and most of all his love for Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), another agent troubled by her "gifts." She's prone to setting things on fire because emotional problems. We learn about the various charms and quirks of these unstable vigilantes through the innocent eyes of John Myers (Rupert Evans), a young C.I.A. agent recruited to become the new liaison for Hellboy. The word liaison implies the one who brings him food, meaning large mounds of pork and Baby Ruth candy bars.
Hellboy is a pastiche of several different films including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, and even X-Men, giving us a story of misunderstood heroes while indulging our fascination with Nazi's and the supernatural. One feels that film might have been more involving had the story focused on one particular aspect, but then again the films of influence already did that. The whole of Hellboy is only equal to the sum of parts because so much is detracting. What Hellboy lacks is a strong villain. Karel Roden's Rasputin is virtually invisible. His hocus pocus theatrics neither scare us nor seduce us and he might as well not even be there. His villainess, Ilsa (Biddy Hodson) is equally as innocuous and merely a laughable Aryan cartoon character.
What is superb about Hellboy, however, is the central character. Very few people could carry such humanity and wit in a character whose face is dehumanized by hours in the make-up chair, but Ron Perlman is one of those people. He is one of America's tragically underused leading men. With the exception of the '80s TV series "Beauty and the Beast" and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "City of Lost Children," Perlman has usually been limited to riding the side car. His enormous features don't automatically categorize him as the obvious matinee idol and they typically get covered in special effects. Such is the case with the red-skinned Hellboy. But there's a quiet angst beneath his comic veneer and a depth to his wit that's entirely alluring.
The film is also a triumph for director Guillermo del Toro. He has become something of a cult hero in the horror genre, earning a name for himself first in his native Mexico but making the first step into Hollywood with the effectively creepy but mostly unremarkable Mimic. Next came The Devil's Backbone, an eerie Spanish-language horror film. With Blade II, he showcased his flare for stylized action and horror, but the sequel went virtually unnoticed. With Hellboy, however, del Toro's victory is that he reveals a sense of humor previously hidden under the special effects. When Ron Perlman sits upon the rooftop venting his frustrations to a young boy while watching the object of his affections flirt with his new liaison, it's both endearing and hysterical. This brief interlude of romantic turmoil damning the hulky demon to eternal misery is a sweetly amusing layer to what might have otherwise turned out to be completely vacuous. I'd be curious to see del Toro step outside the genre of horror and apply his delicately satirical take on romance to more than just crusading hell beasts.
We have reached an era where we will see in film descriptions "based on the comic book by..." as much as we see "based on the novel by...." I don't suppose that's helping to validate comic books beyond the realm of pop culture and graduate them to the world of contemporary art or literature, but it is revealing the intrinsically cinematic quality of the box-by-box craft. Comic books and graphic novels do lend themselves quite well to the frame-by-frame art form and though I prefer to keep from confusing mediums, comic book-based films are a welcome fad to the cesspool of sequels and remakes. Awards ceremonies may yet again need to expand their categories: best adaptation from a novel, best adaptation from a comic book, best adaptation from a children's cereal, best adaptation from bathroom graffiti (political dramas), etc. Though it might not please fans of the comic book looking for a darker, more sinister adaptation of the story, Hellboy is one of the better comic book films to hit theatres in a while.

Patrick Franklin