Hellboy (2004)

Hellboy is a difficult movie to review. It seems uneven, rocky, and odd. The first hour of the film seems way too long. The origin story takes 30 minutes where it should take 15, and it immediately jumps from there to an action sequence that looks cool, but is also too long. The second hour is a little better. It has character development, action, and heart. If the entire film was like the second half, I would have liked it much better. But I am intent on reviewing in chronological order, so I’m gonna talk about the first half right now. As I said, it feels too long. In X-Men, the WWII origin story with Magneto was told in 5 minutes. And while I understand that this is a more in-depth story than Magneto’s, it still could have been told in 15 minutes. And for the action scene following it, it looks better than it feels. An action scene is supposed to bring you into the action, and this scene doesn’t. You can tell that you and the action are a camera apart. And the action scene that follows that (I am now talking about the second half of the film) is much more impressive, but had the problem that it was an entirely ridiculous cop-out way of transitioning between the two. I wouldn’t even call it a transition. The plot is very thin, simple, and tedious. Basically, thing season one of the TV show Supernatural, without the awesome plot twists, surprises, and adding supernatural creatures in the place of the Winchesters. If you haven’t seen Supernatural, I highly recommend picking it up. But this review isn’t about that. This is about Hellboy. The film tries to work with supernatural romance, high-octane action, and beautiful visuals, and it only fully achieves this in the last twenty-five minutes of the film, which are engaging, fun, and beautifully directed by Guillermo Del Toro. But, I do have to add, I really didn’t understand part of it. The villains in the film, that apparently are the creators of all of the monsters and assassins or something, are not in the film enough for me to care about them in the film, like I would in other superhero films, like Spider-Man 2 or even Spider-Man 3. Sadly, Hellboy is a flawed film. I wanted to love it so much. I wanted to fully embrace the film’s 81% Rotten Tomatoes rating, but I just couldn’t. And it makes me sad. I know Del Toro is a visionary, and he could do better than this. I can’t recommend people to watch Hellboy. The film just feels like it could have been more. The film was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film, but it did not win. The sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, won Best Horror. And I am just stupid enough to try it out. And I’ll probably read the comics too. But as for the movie? Hellboy fans should check it out, it’s on Netflix Instant as of me writing my review. But others? It’s not dumb enough to be a fun dumb movie, but not smart enough to be a smart superhero flick.(NOTE: sorry, but the review got deleted accidentally, so I am reposting it. This was written a while ago, before my review of Hellboy II: The Golden Army)
6/10