Hellboy (2004)

Film: Hellboy (2004)
Stars: Ron Perlman, John Hurt, Selma Blair, Rupert Evans, Karel Roden, Jeffrey Tambor
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Oscar History: It did well with the Saturns, but couldn't manage a Makeup nod with Oscar (the sequel did, however, hence why I sought this out to begin with)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We've become so involved with superhero films lately, so utterly predictable and manufactured, that we might forget it wasn't that long ago that superhero movies were a bit of a riskier affair.  When Hellboy came out eleven years ago, it wasn't what you'd call Box Office insurance-the movie was just a few years after X-Men and Spider-Man had reinvented the genre, and we hadn't yet had Christopher Nolan's magnum opus Batman pictures, insisting that all superhero stories be dark and harsh.  That's what makes Hellboy seem both generic and special all-at-once.  It's a film that frequently falls into patterns similar to these other origin story films, but has enough of a distinctive palette to set it apart.  This is a film that isn't being made for the widest possible audience, and so occasionally it falls into more complicated texture and darker tones.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, based on the graphic novel by Mike Mignola, is about a demon who comes from the depths of Hell, aptly named Hellboy (Perlman), who is one of those quintessential misunderstood heroes.  His origins are shady, his manner gruff, and so as a result we're left with a suspicious attitude toward him, even if his actions throughout almost the entire film are not much different than that of Iron Man's (usually good, frequently cocky, occasionally frustrated).  The film continues with him chasing after Rasputin (yes, the Mad Monk, who is somehow alive decades after his death, due to his covenant with the underworld) after his mentor (Hurt) is killed, finally ending in a climactic sequence with the Hell he abandoned.

The film's power is derived not necessarily from its plotting, but from its atmosphere, something fans of Guillermo del Toro should be well-acquainted with (Pan's Labyrinth, in my opinion, is the only one of his films to finely blend the two, though I will admit that I am DYING to see Crimson Peak).  The film relies heavily on reds and golds in its art direction (and in its makeup design, let's be honest), and manages to do some of the best lighting I've seen in a while for an urban area that is being lit at night (it's almost never as dark as it appears in the movies, and while not everything is Time Square or Vegas (where you can't tell what time it is it is so bright) it's never quite as ominous as it is on-screen).  I also rather enjoyed Perlman in the lead role, as he finds that sweet spot between gruff and very watchable.  Evans is enjoyable as a guy out of his league, but he never has the character arc that is expected of the "audience surrogate" role in a comic book film (and sadly he didn't make it into the sequel, so that slight promise was left unfulfilled).

The script may have been the low point-the movie has so many ideas, and doesn't contain them well onscreen.  The entire ambience is well-felt and interesting, but when the film tries to fold into the cliches of comic book films, it fails quite readily.  There's a particularly clunky line reading from David Hyde Pierce as one of the other mutants kept underground in Hellboy's dungeon, "all we freaks have is each other" which is exhausting in how hackneyed it comes across.  The film has such an unusual protagonist in the lead, someone who looks like a villain and acts like a hero, but it feels compelled to shove an "everyone is the same" argument in there as well just to keep the audience grounded in formula, and that feels inauthentic.  Coupled with a love story where Selma Blair becomes less of a person and more of a toy to be quarreled over between Perlman and Evans, and you have the weak link in a film with a lot of really fascinating mood.

Those were my thoughts on this movie, which has developed something of a cult following (though it originally made $100 million, so perhaps cult following is the wrong word and I should replace it with ardent fanbase).  Either way, you likely have some as well-what are they?  Share below in the comments!