the aforementioned insight

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posted by tom / April 12, 2004 /

Mike Mignola's Hellboy series is usually described as "comic horror" -- comic in the comic book sense, not the funny sense. If you haven't had a chance to check out any of the comics, you should. Mignola's a good writer, but it's his art that really shines. Intensely stylized shadows and economy of line on the protagonist; horrifyingly detailed renditions of the monsters and ur-demons that receive most of the punching. A standard issue cribs folklore and adapts it -- the Baba Yaga gets an eye shot out in one story, for instance. The overarching plotline, however, is almost more archetypal. This is good and bad -- it feels right, it works well, but it's a bit familiar.

For this, we must blame Indiana Jones and videogames, because like any good morally unambiguous hero, Hellboy is primarily concerned with beating up Nazis. See, the story is that back at the end of WWII the Nazis started getting into some mystical hoodoo. One of the results of this was the summoning of Hellboy to earth.

At the time they didn't realize it, but the Nazis were being manipulated by Grigory Rasputin -- yes, that Rasputin. He's keen on using Hellboy's mammoth, petrified right hand to unlock the prison of the Ogdru-Jahad, dimly-specified dragonlike creatures sitting in some other dimension, waiting patiently for the chance to come and destroy Earth. Rasputin's motivation comes from confusion over the source of his power -- to paraphrase The Big Lebowski, say what you will about apocalyptic eschatology, at least it's an ethos.

At the time, the Nazis didn't quite grasp the scope of the Doomsday Weapon that Rasputin intended to deliver. But for the handful of lingering Nazi mystics, cyborgs and heads-in-jars that persist to the present day, the fall of the reich has not done much to brighten a worldview that, let's face it, was not all unicorns and rainbows to begin with. So they're pretty much all onboard for the world-ending plan now, too. And Rasputin's still kicking around, of course.

In between killing leprechauns run amok and pacifying the occasional werewolf, Hellboy's dilemma revolves around trying to fit in with the humans he has pledged to protect while doing his best to ignore his destiny as the key to destroying the world. Your standard central plotline issue involves Hellboy & friends traveling to a remote castle, thought to be abandoned, where something terrible happened at the end of WWII. It'll inevitably turn out to be infested with crazy Nazi scientists bent on summoning an elder god to destroy the world, and perhaps also reanimating a half-finished, sixty-year-old army of Nazi zombie supermen. You know, if there's time after lunch.

The movie. As Catherine said, it's well-cast. Ron Perlman does a great job, Selma Blair comes off better-developed than her character from the comic, and David Hyde Pierce (doing Abe Sapien's voice) pulls off a character that seemed guaranteed to not work in 3D. Guillermo del Toro's script leaves something to be desired. It's not bad, but Hellboy's appeal lies in his workmanlike approach to monster-killing; it's just a job, after all, and jobs suck. The mid-battle banter in the comics is sedate, kind of blase -- stuff along the lines of "Crap!" and "Ow!" Hellboy can be funny, but in a way that isn't at all labored. Del Toro has pushed things in the direction of standard issue superhero one-liners, and it doesn't suit the character. Plus, Del Toro's "subtle humor" mode isn't half as subtle as he thinks it is.

As Catherine mentioned, things are much too rushed. It must be tough making the first movie of a superhero franchise -- there's so much backstory to pick from. How to choose enough to hook the audience without confusing them or poaching from stories you might like to use in the future? Movies and comics can both be episodic, but the latter fits the term better. You can release self-contained, 30-page mood-setters, then advance the plot in 120-page trade paperbacks. That luxury didn't exist for Del Toro. He did a good job cramming in as much stuff as he did -- frankly, I wouldn't have bet on there being a second Hellboy movie (although now it looks like there might be), and I can understand the impulse to do everything he could while he had the chance.

But what he ended up with is a movie that doesn't convey the ideas or scope of the plot, or even the plot itself in a consistently coherent manner. The best moments are the quiet ones: Hellboy shooting the shit with his coworkers as they begin a weary monster hunt through the subway system; Hellboy spying on the girl he likes when she goes out for coffee with someone not quite so red and super-powered. I guess these are the more important parts to get right. It's just a shame that the rest of the movie ended up being as stupid and confusing as any other superhero flick. It didn't have to.