Hellboy (2004) Review

“Gonna be sore in the morning”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

When you ask for a hero, don’t be surprised with what kind that comes.


PLOT


Inspired by Mike Mignola’s titular comic book series published by Dark Horse Entertainment, Hellboy follows the titular protagonist who was adopted by scientist Trevor Bruttenholm aka Professor Broom in 1944, who saw him emerge from a dimensional portal that Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin opened on, but was foiled by the American allies Broom was part of. Hellboy was found as a demon with red skin, a stones right hand, a horned head and a tail where some almost mistook to be an ape. Broom adopted him at the time for his youthful innocence and raised him to be a protector against other supernatural threats. As an adult in the story’s present 60 years later, he works under the order of the BPRD (Bureau of Paranormal Research & Defense) alongside the psychic amphibious humanoid, Abraham Itchyo Sapien, but struggles to stay in hiding due to past sightings. Now, he is paired with FBI agent John Myers who is tasked to assist him. Their first mission together begins with investigating an attack in a local museum where Hellboy, who is codenamed Red during these cases, encounters a demonic beast dubbed Sammael that is capable of regeneration. Luckily, Red defeats it by electrocuting it at a train track. He then chooses to visit his old friend Elizabeth Sherman, who he’s had a crush on for some time. She left BPRD to reside in a mental hospital for the sake of better controlling her pyrokinesis. He visits her hoping to convince her to rejoin, but she still prefers not to. When getting picked up, Red collapses and discovers Sammael laid three eggs on him upon encounter. This of course is not good because during the continuing investigation, Abe learned that two Nazi occults were responsible for Sammael’s attack. The members were Karl Ruprecht Kroenen whose lived so long thanks to a clockwork-cyborg like mechanism and Ilsa Von Haupstein who was given eternal youth before bringing back Rasputin who in turn summoned Sammael to spawn two eggs upon each death. At the same time, John befriends Liz hoping to bring her back to the agency, which works after Rasputin manipulates it to happen by activating her powers unwillingly. Red and Abe, codenamed Blue, investigate the train track to find a Sammael nest hoping to destroy it. They go alongside fellow human agents Quarry & Moss (Stephen Fisher & James Babson) and Clay, who is a close friend to Hellboy. The mission doesn’t go smooth because when Hellboy kills another Sammael spawn in a public subway, unaware of it respawning two more, Abe gets severely wounded when finding the nest, while Quarry & Moss get killed by the other spawns. As for Clay, he gets stabbed to death by Kroenen who stages his death by temporarily shutting off his body, to infiltrate. When having a falling out with FBI director Tom Manning over what to do next, Red finds out Myers is taking Liz out for coffee. His jealousy leading him to snoop would be his own doing because Kroenen would wake up and Rapsutin would infiltrate the building to tell Broom that he’ll use Hellboy to destroy the world because he was born for as his stone hand is the official key to unleash the serpentine god Ogdru Jahad. Despite hearing this revelation, Broom only sees him as his son and accepts his fate of assassination due to his recent cancer diagnosis. Red & Liz would be heartbroken upon the discovery and later join Manning & Myers to locate Rasputin’s mausoleum and prevent the apocalypse. When separated, Red is able to get even with Kroenen by trapping him in a spiked floor. He goes forward while Manning waits and when reuniting with the others, he takes it upon himself to take on an entire Sammael nest. Liz would incinerate it completely with her powers, but the impact would leave them and Myers unconscious. When absorbing Liz’s soul, Rasputin would then force Hellboy to reopen the portal by saying his birth name, ‘Anung un Rama’, which grows back his horns that usually trims in an effort to fit in. He opens one lock, but refuses to open the other when Myers gives him the cross that belonged to Broom. He officially stays true to himself when removing his horns and stabbing Rasputin. When retreating with Liz, a behemoth spawn of Ogdru Jahad emerges to plummet both Rasputin & Ilsa before targeting Red. Hellboy however is able to end the conflict quickly by killing the behemoth with a grenade belt. When returning to Liz, she wakes up regaining her soul and the film ends with the two professing their love with a kiss. 


THOUGHTS


I stand by calling the 2000s the decade where the comic book genre was at its most experimental for finding any character that’ll blow audiences away. Hellboy is nothing like other heroes compared to Batman or Spider-Man, but writer/director Guillermo Del Toro shows that being different is the best thing to ask for. This genre is known to be immersive and having done Blade II previously, he does a great job keeping that ball rolling because the production design in making this otherworldly setting come to life is goddamn amazing. Adding this with all the practical and special effects to bring life to Sammael is real damn impressive because a creature that can dislocate its limbs with ease was some scary shit you can’t help admit being impressed about. The biggest strength however has to go to the makeup/costume design done for the central characters because that is where the whole experience is extraordinary for me, seeing characters that are unlike anything we’ve seen before. It’s never too late to find a breakout role and for Ron Perlman, a common collaborator of Del Toro’s filmography, found it here in his 50s. He has forever made the titular role an icon in his own right because he has been the one to truly embody him, nailing his gruffness and pride that he’s always been about. It is through following him where the audience learns to accept one’s own nature and the constant task to overcome adversity one day at a time. This has been the character’s dilemma for the most part because while he tries not to care what others think about him, he has to keep his guard up when it comes to rejection. Plus it’s hard to not like a guy who has a soft spot for cats and Baby Ruth candy bars. He does seem to keep his guard up with the public whenever he’s spotted, but has a hard time doing the same in his search for love. He and Liz are such a strong pair to look back on because they both relate to being outsiders, and feels like that is enough to move forward. However, Selma Blair shows Liz to be most vulnerable as her insecurity is as strong as her power alone, hating how temperament can literally set her off like a bomb. Ironically, they get to find common ground with a real third wheel out of Myers who is the real outsider in comparison since he has to understand his new environment overtime in order to respect his new coworkers. Despite being a character written for the movie, Rupert Evans shows him to live up to being as open minded the way Broom and company have. He makes judgment off of attitude and never appearance, which is all the proof needed to say he is pure of heart the way Abe senses. The final nail in the coffin would then be how he never gave up on Red and trusted him to remember himself. Knowing Hellboy would’ve destroyed the world for Liz is scary due to how close it happened, but it’s a relief when he went back on it because he realized she would’ve not wanted that. If she knew what he did, it’s hard to know if they would stay together during the sequel. Although the protagonist was quickly jealous his presence brought back Liz, it was obvious he was enough to pull it off because he didn’t pressure her to the way the former begged. Most likely, the only one to have been this mediator was Broom. With Kevin Trainor getting the grounds going the professor was compassionate of the unknown, the late John Hurt nailed the wisdom this character was all about. Despite weary of Hellboy coming from a dimensional portal, he accepted him as a son because he knew raising him as such would prevent the apocalypse and he genuinely loved him as his own because he saw no point to live with hate. He didn’t tell his son of his illness because he didn’t want to strengthen from pity and his death would only be sadder because it seemed he had a hard time showing appreciation towards the first human that loved him. Knowing that he prevented the apocalypse rather than unleash it, there’s a certainty his dad would be proud. Apart from Clay who knew how to play off of him in terms of banter, Abe was a true brother to Red because Doug Jones (and voice over David Hyde Pierce) does a great job portraying him as the most composed of characters who reads people enough to be honest on how to respond. That is enough to back the purity everyone in his side has. It did suck for him to get injured because it does feel like he could’ve avoided separation had he been unscathed. The last ally to standout is one who is the complete opposite in terms of grateful. Jeffrey Tambor is ironically hysterical as Manning because he’s such a pragmatic hard-ass who always saw the worst in the situation and didn’t really appreciate Red until he saved him from Kroenen. Irritatingly, that newfound respect wouldn’t be enough for them to be on the same page in the sequel. Speaking of which if you’re gonna give us a real good intimidating villain, a Nazi trio is gonna get the job done. Karel Roden always creeped me out as Rasputin because he was most overconfident in believing seeking power from another world would make him a superior being, without even grasping enough of the thought that is control. He tried with Red, but didn’t understand Ogdru Jahad would not care for him if he gave what it wanted. Ilsa was always onboard because Bridget Hodson showed her to be constantly be in love with the idea of power, hence accepting her fate so easily. As for Kroenen, Ladislav Beranas portrayed him as one who was most ruthless since he let his actions do the talking. It’s not everyday you see a Nazi fight with bladed tonfas and fight so fluently. Thankfully, their reign of terror ended before it could even start and although there are many more supernatural threats as the sequel proves, Hellboy will always be the one to fight back just like his dad wanted. This movie is about as timeless as other comic book movies, but there are still a few things that don’t make much sense after multiple times re-watching over the years. Like for starters, I for one would be laughing my ass off that my own leading general would not know who Kroenen is only for Broom to exposit him. It’s even crazy how within all the commotion, no one even noticed Red come through the other side whereas Rasputin got sucked in. Moving on, how is a high ranking official like Manning allowed to go on tv just to debunk BPRD’s existence? I mean I feel like that only raises suspicion if the whole point is to debunk it. Heck, I don’t even see the hassle in how Broom never considered laminating book pages if Abe likes reading multiple books at once. The museum guards even give too many warnings for Kroenen to surrender when they could’ve shot him much sooner and if they did, they would’ve shot Ilsa sooner which could’ve possibly derailed Rasputin’s plan. My only time to question Abe’s powers has to be how he doesn’t sense Broom’s illness sooner since he had just been diagnosed recently and spent a lot of time before showing him Rapsutin was in the museum. Also, it does feel strange Broom chooses to not investigate the train tracks until the next day rather than immediately. I mean if the goal is stop a horde of Sammael from emerging, I’d get going after being patched up. Next, it feels like a continuity error to say his tongue too short to reach Abe, but was long enough to get Red. It doesn’t make much sense to me based on how it’s edited. If anything else, I’d have to say how Kroenen has a clean blade after stabbing Clay. The real kicker though would be how Manning gets scratched on the side of a finger only for the next frame to say he got cut at the tip of it. Things then felt strange that no one calls Myers about Broom’s murder since it’s ideal for him to have a phone and not Liz. And why is there even a rope in the middle of Kroenen’s room? It’s not like it set off the floor to open, so it’s far too convenient for Red to use to defeat him. Other than that, this one remains a real good time. In conclusion, Hellboy deserves a lot more credit for being a whole new form of creativity in the comic book genre that could’ve been stale much sooner had it not been made the way it did. If you are looking for something unconventional, see this now.