Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
Viewed on August 4, 2020
Action thriller that takes it to the Nazis the way Indy would approve of
Hellboy captures the ages-past grandeur of Mike Mignola’s comic, except where Mignola likes to imply a scene with impressionistic close-ups and the mingling of black and blue shadows with the firm red of the titular hero, Del Toro’s film expresses the action of his set pieces with a gleeful bombast.
The key to the film working as a great adaptation lies with Ron Perlman’s gruff central performance, in addition to Selma Blair as reluctant fire-starter Liz Sherman. Perlman portrays the moody soul-searching and loneliness of the character through pounds of prosthetics and yet there is never a moment when I didn’t believe in his plight. The emoting power of his eyes speaks to years of pain and solitude, something that lesser action-thrillers would try to explain with exposition scenes that clutter and make meaningless the story that inform the grand set pieces typical of the genre.
The plot is familiar (stop those evil Nazis daring to cavort with the supernatural) but Del Toro’s set pieces are so exciting that I didn’t mind the same story beats I have seen before – I only wanted to know how badly the Right Hand of Doom was going to come down on the bad guys. Like any Hellboy comic fan, all I want is peace for Hellboy – the film leaves him in a good spot and has me ready to watch the sequel.
If you’re interested in watching Hellboy, you can find it on Amazon Prime or on HBO Max
Additionally, I highly recommend reading the comics! They are mythic and grandiose with the heart of the beating champion that is Hellboy. If you love classic traditional tales (Arthur/Camelot, Baba Yaga, Lovecraftian monsters), then you love how Mignola mixes them into a stirring tale all his own.
You can find the first collected volume on Amazon, where their Comixology subscription is the way to go if you are or want to be a big comics reader, or at your local library