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Regarding my last post
The ever inquisitive ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amand_r comments As entertaining as all this was, it doesn't answer the more important question, which is: "How was Hellboy?"
I knew somebody would ask that. But I was too stunned by the inexpressible awfulness of that preview--and still trying to decide how I felt about Hellboy--to go into it just then.
I liked Hellboy. Ron Perlman was, as always, wonderful. Selma Blair was appropriately goth-y. John Hurt was fun. Rasputin didn't look anything like I was expecting.* His Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS sidekick wasn't nearly the stunning ice queen I'd have expected, either.
Nazis, storm-tossed summonings, ravenous cthulhu-esque monsters, magic, super-battles--what's not to like? Except, well, an excess of CGI combat. When your hero is nigh invulnerable, and so is the bad guy, most of the battles are merely time-fillers. I'd also like to have seen more of the world around them. The movie hints that Hellboy in particular, and the supernatural in general, is rapidly becoming an open secret. But nothing really comes of that, and I'd have liked to have seen that.
Also, one of Hellboy's foils, a by-the-book agency bigwig who doesn't like him eventually winds up working side by side with Hellboy. Not entirely unexpected, I know.... They have a moment I really did like in which they discover a mutual interest and bigwig chides Hellboy and instructs him on the finer points of said interest**. It was a much subtler moment than I expected, and I appreciated it. But then he (the bigwig) basically disappears from the movie. Where'd he go? It's not like he wasn't right there in the thick of things. I hate dangling plot threads.
Overall, I enjoyed it. But would I see it again? Maybe, but not definitely.
*I have no idea what the historical Rasputin looked like, but this was not my mental image of him. (It doesn't help that the Boney M song "Rasputin" kept running through my mind when I was watching him.)
**Hellboy is constantly smoking cigars throughout the movie, using a butane lighter to fire them up. After defeating a bad guy, he tries this but the lighter won't work. Bigwig chides him--Hey, what are you doing?--as he repeatedly tries to spark the lighter. Then Bigwig takes the lighter, telling him "You never light a cigar that way. You use a wooden match--it preserves the flavor." And he lights it with a match. Hellboy takes a drag. "See?" says Bigwig. Hellboy nods. "Thanks." I liked that a lot.
amand_r comments As entertaining as all this was, it doesn't answer the more important question, which is: "How was Hellboy?"I knew somebody would ask that. But I was too stunned by the inexpressible awfulness of that preview--and still trying to decide how I felt about Hellboy--to go into it just then.
I liked Hellboy. Ron Perlman was, as always, wonderful. Selma Blair was appropriately goth-y. John Hurt was fun. Rasputin didn't look anything like I was expecting.* His Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS sidekick wasn't nearly the stunning ice queen I'd have expected, either.
Nazis, storm-tossed summonings, ravenous cthulhu-esque monsters, magic, super-battles--what's not to like? Except, well, an excess of CGI combat. When your hero is nigh invulnerable, and so is the bad guy, most of the battles are merely time-fillers. I'd also like to have seen more of the world around them. The movie hints that Hellboy in particular, and the supernatural in general, is rapidly becoming an open secret. But nothing really comes of that, and I'd have liked to have seen that.
Also, one of Hellboy's foils, a by-the-book agency bigwig who doesn't like him eventually winds up working side by side with Hellboy. Not entirely unexpected, I know.... They have a moment I really did like in which they discover a mutual interest and bigwig chides Hellboy and instructs him on the finer points of said interest**. It was a much subtler moment than I expected, and I appreciated it. But then he (the bigwig) basically disappears from the movie. Where'd he go? It's not like he wasn't right there in the thick of things. I hate dangling plot threads.
Overall, I enjoyed it. But would I see it again? Maybe, but not definitely.
*I have no idea what the historical Rasputin looked like, but this was not my mental image of him. (It doesn't help that the Boney M song "Rasputin" kept running through my mind when I was watching him.)
**Hellboy is constantly smoking cigars throughout the movie, using a butane lighter to fire them up. After defeating a bad guy, he tries this but the lighter won't work. Bigwig chides him--Hey, what are you doing?--as he repeatedly tries to spark the lighter. Then Bigwig takes the lighter, telling him "You never light a cigar that way. You use a wooden match--it preserves the flavor." And he lights it with a match. Hellboy takes a drag. "See?" says Bigwig. Hellboy nods. "Thanks." I liked that a lot.