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Review : Hellboy DVD
Last weekend I saw the best damn comic book movie ever made and I am a bit guilty that I did not go see Hellboy in the movie theaters this summer. I love the super-Gothic artistic Dark Horse published comic book Hellboy by Mike Mignola.
This movie is the labor of love of the fat ass Spanish film-maker Guillermo del Toro. This is the same guy who directed Mimic and Blade 2. When he was making Blade 2 his had Mike Mignola as a visual designer. He actually declared his desire to make a Hellboy movie on the Blade 2 DVD commentary track. Also on Blade 2 was Ron Perlman as one of the bad guys. Del Toro declared that this guy was the only one to play Hellboy and it forking works. I honestly can't think of anyone else who can do the character of Hellboy justice on the silver screen. Well Bruce Campbell could have done it but that is it.
The visual composition and lighting is straight off the pages of the Hellboy comic and that is a very very good thing. I would have to rant the graphic novel work of Mike Mignola only second to the great Frank Miller. They are both obsessed with the use of solid black shapes as a visual tool. Ok on to the movie. Most non-nerd movie viewers had no idea that it was based on a comic and there is an inside joke about it in the movie.
Hell boy is a heavily researched Judeo-Christian, Lovecraftian and Pagan comic book tale. Let's see. In the 1930's Rasputin came back from the dead and made a deal with the Nazis to unleash hell to help them end World War 2. The Allies stop the Nazi/Hell arms deal and a little demon boy came out of the portal. This little guy grew up to be Hellboy raised by a super secret paranormal devision of the FBI. Also in the group is a psychic fish human named Abe Sapian and a pyrokenetic woman named Liz. Later Rasputin comes back from the dead again and tries to end the world again.
The movie is based on the comic but the creator of the comic worked with the director to make the movie but he gave del Toro leeway to change stuff around from the comic to make a better movie. It works out and this was a damn enjoyable popcorn movie. It has to easily be the best movie based on a comic book since the Tim Burton Batman movie. It is not going to win any Oscars but it could not have been cooler.
The movie looks perfect on DVD and there are a creator commentary track and a cast commentary track. There is lots of extra stuff and on two DVDs and they actually included old Dr Seuss Charles McBoingBoing cartoons that were only briefly shown in the movie.
Just about everyone who loves sci-fi movies should check this out. Hellboy is a hella cool movie and I seriously hope they do a sequel.
Jake at August 4, 2004 
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Comments
And it still isn't in NZ yet.
But it is tomorrow.
Finally.
Posted by: Matt at August 4, 2004 11:31 AM
" I would have to rant "
and you are great at ranting!
Posted by: Anita Rowland at August 4, 2004 12:25 PM
I've been wanting to read the comic book series. I might just go ahead and do that, once I figure out what my next job is going to be. :/
I still need to get Sandman TPB 2 if that is any indication of how out of it I am right now. And I want to try my hand at doing this stuff in the future for a living. XD
Posted by: Arluss at August 4, 2004 3:51 PM
I watched Hellboy the other night and thought it rocked. They already have a sequel listed for release in 2006 according to the IMDB.
Posted by: Kevin at August 5, 2004 10:53 AM
yes yes, absolutely...Hellboy was one of the best adaptations to have made it to the big screen, and i'll be damned if del toro wasn't the only film maker today able to pull it off. his love for the genre has been extremely apparent in all his previous output, and I really hope to see him continue where he left off. it's definitely time for a genre film franchise actually worth fawning over.
if anyone hasn't read the original books, I highly recommend picking some of them up, it's one of my favorite comic series.
Posted by: jeremy at August 9, 2004 3:54 PM
yes yes, absolutely...Hellboy was one of the best adaptations to have made it to the big screen, and i'll be damned if del toro wasn't the only film maker today able to pull it off. his love for the genre has been extremely apparent in all his previous output, and I really hope to see him continue where he left off. it's definitely time for a genre film franchise actually worth fawning over.
if anyone hasn't read the original books, I highly recommend picking some of them up, it's one of my favorite comic series.
Posted by: jeremy at August 9, 2004 3:55 PM
sorry bout the double post, i got a cgi script error on submit that said your comment template can't find it's CSS file.
Posted by: jeremy at August 9, 2004 3:57 PM
