Oh, Hell

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2004)

I never noticed it before, but Guillermo del Toro is one of THOSE directors.
You know, the one who has a phenomenal visual sense, but has no idea what to do with those bothersome things called "actors." To see this problem at its worst, make note of the awful "Bulletproof Monk," but del Toro is several shades better in that he hides it very, very well. In fact, so well I never noticed until now.
The average movie-goer doesn't care. If you've seen this movie, you probably didn't even notice that the actors just kind of stand around, and when they do move (in any scene where they're not replaced by CGI-effects), it's without much thought to it (walking down a hall; walking down a street).
The action sequences are very creative, I really did like this movie. Thumbs up. But I can't give it any better than a B. Great effects, great acting, but the storytelling was only so/so, and so was the dialogue. I felt like I was watching the 2nd season premiere of some HBO series, or worse, 3 or 4 episodes from the middle of season 2 just kinda crunched together. There was no arc to it-- this happened, then that happened, the end. Characters came back from the dead so easily, it's like, what's the importance of even killing them in the first place? The bad guys are just gonna get up again in 5 minutes. Where's the rest of the story?
Despite ALL this, I didn't hate it. Ron Perlman and Selma Blair are way too charismatic, even when they're given lines that are MEANT to sound cool but were actually written by a 40-year-old filmmaker who thinks he has the same taste in one-liners as a 20-year-old. Granted, yes, I liked this better than Del Toro's "Blade 2," but there's still major room for improvement here. Any word on when the world will get "Hellboy Returns," or better yet "Hellboy Forever?"
If they're better than the first one, the way "X-2" was light years better than "X-Men," then those are the films I want to see. 8/10.