Smart, stylish, funny and romantic. No, dis not Monster’s horney.com profile. It be desktription of Hellboy, a movie me would call an anty-superhero movie. Why monster call it anty-superhero movie? Becuz monster’s Anty Florence not big fan of superhero movies, but she really like superhero movies dat defy de genre by taking established cliches and turning dem on deir head. And dis be one of dose movies.
Movie begin during WWII when Allied forces led by nerdy young scientist stop bald guy in bathrobe and Nazis from…opening gateway to other dimension/Hell/apokalips. Yeah, okay. Not exactly original idea but, back in de 40’s, what a bad guy to do? Conquer de world and open gateways to other dimension, dats what. Anyhoo, gateway opened for only a few seconds before Allies attack and shut it down. Nazis eskape but soldiers discover someting dat came thru gate – someting from another dimension. A weird and scary little creature dat look like…
Oops. Me sorry. Not DAT weird and scary. Monster try again. A weird and scary little creature dat look like…
Awwww. Little creature so cute army decide not to blow its brains out. Instead, dey keep and call him Hellboy. Hellboy raised by kindly brilliant nerd scientist who grow up to become…
No, wait. Me sorry. Not dat guy. Hellboy raised by kindly brilliant nerd scientist who grow up to become…
Hellboy grow up too and, years later, he and Professor working for Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BURPD) along wit other crazy charakters like Abe Sapien (psychik amphibian) and Liz Sherman (firestarter-but-not-stopper who Hellboy in love wit).
Young FBI agent, John Myers, assigned to BURPD, but not exacktly hit if off wit Hellboy. But no time to wallow becuz pesky Nazis resurrect bald bathrobe guy and release rasta alien on Earth. Rasta alien very creepy and cranky and look like…
No, wait. Very close but dat not him. Creepy and cranky rasta alien look like…
Hellboy chase it down and kill it – but when it die, it lay eggs dat give birth to two more.
While Hellboy follow agent John Myers out on a date, trying to make de moves on Liz Sherman, bald guy in bathrobe sneak into Professor’s study and, wit help of henceman, Slashy McStabby, he kill him.
Hellboy and co. travel to Moscow, land of vodka, caviar, and interdimensional portals where bad guys planning to finish what dey started back in WWII. Hellboy forced to help dem to save Liz, but agent Myers tell him to remember who he really be!
Hellboy remember who he be – den take on giant octo-monster before killing it by blowing it up from de inside wit hand grenade belt.
Liz dead but Hellboy bring her back to life by threatening to kick demon ass. Dey kiss. De End!
Verdikt: Sure, movie plot be a little cliche and some tings don’t make sense (“Here. I’ll just duck around dis corner while you engulf chamber in flames. I should be okay.”), but Hellboy have a lot of heart, humor and, most important of all, charakters you care about. Like Hellboy, Liz, agent Myers, and, monster’s favorite…
Oops. Me sorry again. Not dat guy. Monster’s favorite…
Rating: 7.5 chocolate chippee cookies.
I watched Hellboy Friday night and enjoyed it greatly. I liked Abe a lot and Hellboy himself was great but Liz? How does living in an asylum help you control your firestarting? I could see living in seclusion so no one accidentally pisses you off, but an asylum?
I would give it 8 chocolate chip cookies.
Anne Teldy
Cookie Monster is right, HellBoy was pretty good. 🙂
Hey if anyone wants to vote for a Stargate pair in the Ultimate Slash Madness Tourney at AfterElton McKay and Sheppard are up against Supernatural’s Castiel and Dean… (sadly, Jack and Daniel were eliminated in the last round):
http://www.afterelton.com/poll/2012/09/ultimate-slash-madness-tourney-round-three?page=last%2C2
A little love for Stargate!
Loved Hellboy! I think super-antiheroes are so much more interesting than superheroes: they seem to have a lot more depth of character. Sure, Hellboy had its share of cliches: Nazis, superNazis, immortal superNazis summoning Cthulhu (which was an awesome scene, by the way). But I found the characters wonderfully engaging and interesting. And the thing about antiheroes is that they don’t have the same constraints as heroes, which makes them more unpredictable and surprising and… fun to watch. A solid 8 chocolate chippies from me.
@anneteldy: Yeah, I think Liz was there to have someplace calm, predictable and away from things that could stress, upset or anger her. And, of course, asylums are all the rage in superhero movies.
Oh, and Hellboy stalking Liz when she goes out for a stroll with the cute, young agent was sooooo sweet. Right up until it got really tragic. Yep, good writing there.
You know, I actually thought I was going to like this movie a lot more than I actually did. I mean, it was certainly enjoyable and all, and much better than most of the stuff we’ve seen, but it still felt like something missing. I don’t know, maybe I’m just tired this evening (no maybe about it) and it’s affecting my outlook.
That said, it wasn’t without its fun parts – pretty much any scene with Hellboy kicking some butt was pretty good. Even there though, a lot of the wire pull stunts didn’t really look realistic at all, and the monsters were fairly cheesy.
I did like Abe the fish dude in pretty much any scene he was in!
Of course, like with so many of these movies, I wound up with the few “how come” type questions:
For example, why did they have to keep Hellboy in a vault? To keep him under control? But otherwise he seemed to roam around freely anyway. Also, wouldn’t he be really pissed off about that? He didn’t really seem to mind it though. I don’t know.
Why would he leave the first monster’s remains on the railway track? Wouldn’t that be a derailment danger? I guess I’m just being to practical.
What exactly did the ex-Nazi’s hope to gain by all this, bring about the end of the world? How does that benefit them at all? Are they just being jerks? Yeah, I guess probably.
Saving the kittens was a nice touch, but… really, who brings an entire box of kittens to the subway? Maybe it’s a big city thing, I don’t know.
Overall, it was enjoyable enough, but I’m not sure I’d be as forgiving as Cookie. Maybe 5 cookies. But only oatmeal, no raisins!
Hubby loves this movie, but I’ve never watched it. I know, I’m a slacker. 😛 Loved the review, though…especially the first DIS! 😆 I’m tellin’ ya, the whole of Jersey wonders where that hellspawn came from, too.
das
I remember liking Hellboy when I saw it in the cinema but seem to have promptly forgotten everything about it since because it was almost like watching it for the first time!
Not many nits to pick with this one. It’s a pretty solid movie. Good script, interesting characters, decent VFX with a nice mix of CGI, makeup, animatronics and miniatures.
I don’t really understand the point of Myers, though. Why would the scientist dude pick a rookie straight out of the academy to become Hellboy’s handler? Sure, he serves his purpose as the audience’s eyes into this new world but surely a more experienced FBI agent would have been a more sensible choice?
And, as gforce says, why did they keep Hellboy locked up? He seemed pretty rational and calm and (as he showed later in the movie) could have broken out of his cell at any time. Apart from the fact that he was nearly 7 feet tall, red, has horns and a big stone hand, he could have been a normal, functional member of society. The only reason he seemed to want to escape was to see his girlfriend. Big deal.
I don’t agree that Hellboy is an anti-superhero (or is it super-antihero?). He’s just a regular superhero. He does good, works for the government keeping evil monsters at bay and seems to be a nice, if slightly moody, guy. He’s more of a superhero than the Hulk last week who didn’t do a single superheroy act but just stalked his ex-girlfriend for 2 and a half hours!
I found a lot of the occult stuff to be overblown and Nazis? Meh! But I guess that’s comic book canon so they couldn’t mess with that too much.
Hmmmmmmm, what’s next? Spiderman 2! This could go either way!
Speaking of your Japan trip Joe, you may want to visit Namja Town. It’s an indoor theme park that not only focuses on the fun aspect of things, but also is home to a million flavors of ice cream including stuff like Squid Ice Cream things like that. It’s just just ice cream though, its food stuff as well lol
The official website is here
http://www.namja.jp/
And the official websites guide in extensive detail in English
http://www.namja.jp/img/pdf/guidemap.pdf
You’l notice that as a foodie you’l likely have a great deal of fun here.And it’s in Tokyo too just in a different area of it. You could likely make a day of it if it interests you.
Just lol. The ice creams in that guide thing look incredible.
Squid ice cream.. I have nothing left to add.
I agree with 7.5 cookies. Great film, if not perfect, but much better than it’s sequel. So, Spiderman 2 next. Again, the first film of the series was better.
Why is it that when viewing your blog via RSS I keep getting posts from November 2006 popping up as new and un-read?
I watched it again, for maybe the third time this year. Yep, good movie. This one is allowed to be 132 minutes.
In the intro: “he eats six times a day. He has a thing for cats.”… did they want me to think he eats the cats? Because I did at first and I didn’t mind. It did set up a literal “save the cat” moment.
Hellboy II is still better.
I’d never read the comic, so I went to see the movie blind. Loved the movie! It wasn’t what I was expecting but it was fun. Too many cats in one room though. It’s not healthy for cats to be that crowded. Yes, strange beings all in the movie and I’m the one that noticed the cat overcrowding. 🙄
I’ve been running all day. Once I quit for the night, that’s it. My whole body is going to start aching and it will seize up. Does anyone else get like that?
One more thing, How is Aspen doing? Animals and children should be exempt from cancer. It’s terrible when anyone gets sick … You just look in those sad eyes that don’t understand and it’s just heartbreaking. Anyway, please let her know we are all pulling for Aspen.