I'm planning on seeing it soon, was wondering if any of you have seen it already, what do you think of.
It must be quite good, everybody from Metal Hammer (not mine, my bruv's. I am no Goth Rocker) to The Guardian think it's great. Hell even the Mail says it's good, despite "Making light of Satanism" Oooh ! Evil film ! LOL
Awesome! Seen it on pirate, bought the Region 1 DVD, going to the cinema as well. Brilliant film!
I thought it was good. I've been to see loads of films recently. Better than Chronicles of Riddick, better than I, Robot, perhaps on a par, perhaps slightly better than Spider-man 2, certainly no where near as good as DODGEBALL!
I saw it on pirate VCD a while ago...
ITS FAB!!!!
I'm a massive Hellboy fan, and I thought it did the comics justice. Ron Pearlman was made to be Hellboy, though I have to say Abe was my favourite.
It's a very good comic-book movie. Recommended.
Did anyone read that article in Viz about how the hidden 'code' in the Daily Mail had been cracked by bored scientists?
"I am afraid of everything."
"Coloureds will eat my children."
It's all starting to make sense now...
Generally positive reviews (apart from The Independent's Anthony Quinn, who called it "surprisingly endurable" and didn't seem to get it at all), faithful to the comic, directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Ron Perlman...
I'm definitely going to see this - only pisser is the ridiculous length of time the UK has had to wait for it.
Actually that bit about making light of Satanism should be paraphrased, not quoted .The only reason I read The Mail is because i'm interested in how "the others" think. Don't know why my mum buys it, her being an anti Tory liberal vegetarian. Okay she's a royalist, kinda, but that's about the only thing she has in common with the Mail's views. Having said all that, in the letters page, there was a letter from someone who was vegan on moral grounds ????
Are there really people that cannot read the subtext of their papers or something ?
Saw it on pirate dvd a while back...IT ROCKS!
Professor Bear - if you've got it I'd be grateful for a photocopy or scan of that - for academic purposes, honesty.
Ditto to what GC said. Thanks. I'll email you my email address so you can send the fore mentioned attatchment, if you have it, and if you be so kind :)
Totally awsome movie, got it on R1 DVD.Looking to buy the Directors cut gift set.
Very faithfull adaption, totally cool.
I'm downloading it from lovely eMule, will let you know...
?9.99 region 3 from cd-wow (2 disc set with stacks of extras)- got it a while back and it's very good. looks lovely - particularly the opening scenes which set the movie up nicely and a firly faithful to the comics.
Watched it back in June on a pirate vcd (crappy sound though) then bought the region 1 dvd and finally took my son to see it on the big screen last night. Excellent film, one of the best comic adaptations I have seen since The Crow.
Marc
You do realise that by watching pirate versions you are threatening the livelihoods of people involved in the film industry and helping fund crime and terrorism. And I know Tom Cruise doesn't need the money but there are lots of gaffers, best boys, carpenters and caterers out there who do.
Anyway, I thought it was OK. The character designs seemed spot on - not sure about the actual characters though as I haven't read that much HELLBOY. It took me a while to "get into the mood" of the film as well (I have got a terrible cold at the mo').
Strangely, I found it to be the reverse of this kind of film. Normally the action sequencesare pulse pounding and exciting stuff but the story leaves me cold. This time, I thought the action sequences were rather damp squibs. And you'll guess the actual denouement about five hours before you go into the cinema.
I think I'd agree on above average (but on my scale, that's a long way from ROCKS and AWESOME).
saw it a few months back
it was out here at the same time as you US
bloody brillant,.
good characters. first ten minutes page for page hellboy first issue.
decent comic book romp,. see and enjoy.
I saw it on the plane to Australia. I thought it was pretty good. I hadn`t thought you could do a convincing Hellboy that looked like the comic, but there he was.
It wasn`t absolutely brilliant for mine, though. The character buildups were a bit too rushed (maybe that`s just an effect of watching it whilst exhausted on an overnight flight)
Thought it started superbly, the effects were mostly great, Perlman is excellent as Hellboy and the supporting cast are more than adequate.
However, some of the direction leaves alot to be desired. The editing on some action scenes is absolutely terrible and ruins the flow of the scenes (see the scene where Hellboy is stuck on the underground bridge near the end). The film also seems about half an hour too long, and alot of the scenes dont make sense (Hellboy in the middle of a busy road and not a single one of the cars zooming past him give any indication that the drivers have seen him at all? daft!)
Sorry, im rambling again!
Summing up: Disappointing.
Pretty much agree with Wooly. It's a decent action comic book flick. Nothing groundbreaking but fine enough. It looks good, some good performances (Perlman is perfect). Thing is tho, it's all a bit obvious. No surprises in the film at all. Some decent one liners but nothing as outly funny as some of the stuff in Spidey 2. I wasn't as dissappointed as Wooly, it's pretty much what I expected, but it's by no means the great movie others are saying.
Incidently, is now the time to print more Hellboy stories in the Meg or has that egreement now over?
Alan!
Im still very interested by the proposed directors cut.
Anyone know what extra stuff to expect?
Also, to be honest, i enjoyed Hellboy more than i enjoyed Spidey 2.
Ah, well taht's where I completely diagree with you.
I thought that Spidey 2 had a human element that was severly missing from Hellboy. They tried to instill a love interest but it just felt contrived whereas the one in Spidey 2, along with the other Peter Parker elemnts, gave the film a real herat to it.
That said I am a huge Spidey fan so maybe i'm biased but Hellboy, whilst alright, gave us nothing we haven't seen before.
Alan!
Normally i'd agree with you there, but all the human elements of spidey 2 were lifted straight from spidey 1 and didnt offer anything new, not till the end at least.
And the stuff about losing his powers? I thought he was changed at the genetic level? How does that just 'wear off' when Parker's feeling down?
There are other things as well, but im at work and getting stared at by a manager, so i better go for now!!!
Wul
I just thought that the human lements were done so much better this time round. I'm not trying to say that spidey 2 was perfect (the end of teh subway scene felt awfully tacked on) but I just thought that everything, from the relationship with MJ, with Aunt May, especially with Harry were spot on. Jameson was as prefect as Hellboy was character wise, and Doc Ock given a more human side made the character so much more real than Hellboys 2D villain(s) by numbers.
Alan!
Good points all round, but i still felt that at least half of spidey 2 had been seen before.
But, I guess im being a bit negative here!!
Both films are great fun, even though i am a picky get. I think im just a bit bitter because Judge Dredd was a load of old arse!!
So, who do we think is going to be the big baddie for Spidey 3? Venom?
Saw Hellboy in April on a nice big screen in Florida.
Its highly enjoyable and if your into comics i think you'll like it, but as been said above, the action bits are clumpy with too much obvious CG stuff, the details and vision in it are great as is John Hurt (if i remember right)
Also saw The Punisher then, which was good fun tooif only they had dumped his 'flatmates' from the story.
Lord Huff
Yeah, there were certain elements in Spidey 2 that had been seen before but remember, it was a sequel and so there were always going to be. The secret is to take those familiar elements and improve on them. Something I presonally think Raimi achieved.
Don't get me wrong re: Hellboy. It is worth a watch, but I wonder how good it appears to a non comic reader, something Spidey 2 did on a massive scale.
Villain for Spidey 3? Dunno, but Raimi has said taht he won't be using Venom. I think the director is a fan of the Stan Lee written stories from the 60's so i'm guessing it'll be someone from those early days.
personally I think they'll go with The Lizard. Curt Conners was introduced in Spidey 2, and it's another 3D villain that the audience can relate to. They, I would imagine also contunue to devleop Harry into the 2nd Goblin, maybe even have him as Hobgoblin to differentiate the character from the first film.
Alan!
To be honest, i found it all sadly unengaging. Was really looking forward to it aswell. I thought it was to info heavy, and not interesting enough naratively. Good cast, and production values couldn't save it for me, i'm afaid. Quite sloppy directed in parts also. shame.
Grmmph. Didtribuytion is pretty piss-poor in London. I think they've pretty much given up on this one.
Was a bit disappointed (although all I know of Hellboy is the Meg reprint and perusing Mignolas luvverly art every now and then in the comic shop).
It seemed very Hollywood; Big dumb SFX, big dumb convoluted plot, big dumb fights, big dumb one liners, big dumb romance - not really having the indie feel that Spidey *kinda* has or the emotional intensity/level of threat either. Hellboy wanders from one demonic beastie to the next with all the trepidation of a paperboy delivering his next paper...not really any tension there... not bad, but didnt really grab me.
Wow... the CAP Alert review is great!
Link: melting flesh gore!
Seen it, thought it was awesome, continue to worship at the Del Toro alter.
Anyone else could have seriously f*cked this up
Amen
Thought Hellboy was good but really not great which I was hoping it would be, don't think we needed the nerdy guy to introduce us to THE WORLD and the pacing and direction was seriously off in many of the scenes and even the performances, flat delivery etc... not to mention the anticlimax at the end: after Hellboy defeats the main baddies, Rasputin and the gods, he has to defeat the slightly minor baddie inside Rasputin. Kinda felt flat. Should have ended with a bang instead of a whimper.
"Amen"
Sorry, I thought this was a response to the CAP review.
Saw it in Norway a couple of weeks back.
Fine, but not that memorable, and the main problem for me was the romantic subplot - aaarrrgggh - whyyyy?
Design wise: fantastic; characterwise: great (except side-kick agent), and putting aside the romance, it more or less retained the feel of the original idea, as far as I'm concerned.
Worth seeing, but a little disappointing...
...unlike Farenheit 9/11 which was quite overwhelming.
DOGEBALL!!!!!! (Stan Lee punctation)
I heard that the human agent, Thaddeus or whatever, wasn't in the early drafts of the script, but was added on the advice that the audience need someone to identify with.
I thought that was meant to be Hellboy. Or even Abe.
But that wiener?
Well, I can identify with Hellboy more than the guy who's name I haven't even remembered. He tended to get in the way, needing to be saved and not doing much that was useful, more to distract. We kind of lose Hellboy in a way and it's his film. It would have been a great character coup to basically see the film from Hellboy's POV rather than anyone else's, a mainstream audience rooting for the devil!
Hurrah! I saw it last night, and it duid indeed have "impalement with squashing death", an "unholy being rising from the blood of a murder" and "monstrous demon action violence", as well as Ron Perlman painted red beating the shit out of the forces of evil with a big stone fist and saving boxes of kittens.
It's really captured the feel of the comic as well, they've made a real effort to follow mignolas design sense, and assides from Agent Nobody (who stays out of the way for the most part) they've made no attempts to mess with the material.
I'm not a fan of CGI fight scenes, and it looks like they did the computer graphics on the cheap, but whenever they're doing something thats actually real and physical the film looks great, Ron Perlman painted red and the clockwork nazi assasin especially.
It loses points for being mildly anticlimactic and strangely muted in all the scenes that should be the most! exciting! but remains very likebale.
It was about time Ron Perlman was in a decent movie - the guys great, but he seems to appear in an awful lot of shit (See also: Rutgeur Hauer)
I was trawling the second-hand video shops in Cardiff last week and it seemed that every second tape featured Rutger Hauer in some form of another. A man of the (unwanted) video era.
I still treasure my Wedlock / Spilt Second double bill I got for about two quid - Its a video era gem! And blind fury, which totally rips of a japanese film and makes it into an 80s action flick before that sort of thing was considered "cool" and with none of your ironic postmodern referencing at all.
Salute of the Jugger.
I'll say no more.
Weren't John ford, Akira Kurosawa, and Sergio Leone all ripping each other off before anyone these days.
Salute of teh Jugger - Future Sports!
I saw this today, at the cinema, for free! And I thought it was excellent, ranks up there with the likes of Spidey, X2 and not down there with LXG and Dredd.
Overall Grud-O-Rating: 49. Out of what? Nobody knows...
Hellboy !!!!
I just saw it last night. Best film I've seen this year !