More forgettable del Toro blather.

Rating: 4/10 (5 September 2008)

I think it is well-established that if you enjoy comic books and comic book movies, my reviews are probably not the ones you want to peruse. Spider-Man 2 and X2 delivered, but pretty much every other contemporary superhero movie completely underwhelmed me with their extended runs of uninspiration. Most comic book movies (and I can only speak of the ones that are supposedly good; if I don't like Iron Man, how the hell am I going to enjoy Daredevil?) contain an intriguing premise buoyed by a distinctive main character, and then descend into complacency: extensive chases, EXTENSIVE CGI-based fight scenes, and perhaps a bit of dull political intrigue.
Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy is pretty low on the political intrigue, instead choosing to utilize one of the three Just Add Water villain sects, the Nazis (in case you don't know, the other two varieties are "Commies" and "Terrorists", collect them all!). Nothing ever really comes of this, and that's really the problem with the film in general. It takes so much time setting up everything that when it finally gets around to DOING anything, it falls right in the rut of comic book banality. In fact, now that I think about it, it has a LOT of similarities to this year's Iron Man: The film's main selling point is a sarcastic wiseacre character essayed by a distinctive and talented actor, but in both situations, that is pretty much the film's ONLY selling point. For Iron Man, plot and story are a very distant second. For Hellboy, a distant third.
Del Toro, as exhibited in other disjointed underwhelmers like The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth, has a vivid, beautiful visual style, a striking color palette and an occasionally wonderful, evocative atmosphere (the scenes set in the cold, cold night outside especially vibe like a cityscape). But, like his other films, that's pretty much all they do. The characters aren't interesting, the stories don't go anywhere worthwhile, and the film goes on far too long. This is a film that takes fifteen minutes to set up its opening credits. Other than Hellboy, a blander set of heroes you will never see. John Hurt has fun getting to set up the trailer ("We are the ones that bump...back"), but doesn't do much else (and then gets bumped off No Country for Old Men-style) Rupert Evans has been in very little else, and with good reason. He has no presence, no charisma, and gets a lame character to boot. As for Selma Blair, there's a reason most people only know her as "that chick that made out with Sarah Michelle Gellar". Hellboy even loses interest after a while. He's introduced as a giant red John McClane, but where Downey's insistent cynicism wearied me of Iron Man, Hellboy goes the opposite way, making him a big red pussy underneath, and by the halfway point, he's writing poetry and brooding on a rooftop while his partner woos his girl, and I'm rolling my eyes and metaphorically crossing my arms and sighing.
I would have recapped the plot, but as of this writing, it has been a whopping four minutes since the film's credits began, and I have already been forced to utilize several internet websites to remind me of the characters and occurrences herein. I've heard great things about the sequel, The Golden Army, but I obviously can't trust any of those things, because a lot of people (including critics I usually read and respect like J.Hoberman and Ed Gonzalez) thought Hellboy was awesome, and you see how this turned out for me. Oh, looking at the IMDb page, I totally forgot about Karel Roden as Griori Rasputin. I don't know if it's THAT Rasputin, because he's only present for about three scenes in the entire film, but he's supposed to be the villain. Other than having some sort of blonde woman with him (I would assume she has a name, but I'm failing this quiz), I don't remember him really doing...much of anything. I guess he fits the "Commies" thing considering he's a Russian, and it's a bit odd to have an extended setup about Nazis, then have the villain be a forgettable Russki. Or a forgettable anything. What? That forgettable feeling pervades Hellboy as a whole, and I'm really in awe at Guillermo del Toro's plentiful "talent" for making such ornately beautiful but mindbogglingly forgettable films. It's like every one of his films ends with a flash from a Men in Black Neutralizer. Ah, Men in Black. What a great film that was. Hell, boy, during Hellboy, I even found myself pining for Iron Man, and considering that film's 5/10 score, I can't possibly give this non-entity anything approaching that score, so I'll go one step down and hope for the best for the sequel.
{Grade: 4/10 (C-) / #62 (of 65) of 2004}