Did Hellboy suck?

Unfortunately, I thought it was pretty weak. The first time I saw it I liked it, but the more I turned it around in my head the less and less I liked it. We're TOLD HB sees Broom as his father, but they have, like, no scenes together. Why are we supposed to buy this? Because we're told? Also, that Russian corpse was way less funny than I was anticipating, and each joke he cracked just hit the floor like a pancake. A weak movie with a good visual presentation, IMO.

I don't agree with you at all. I thought the characters were well developed, especially considering that it's a comic book movie. I also thought Ron Pearlman's performance was fantastic. I never read the comics, but from what I heard the characters were very close to how they were in the comics. In my opinion Hellboy was one of the best movies to come out this year. It was entertaining, exciting, and funny. I wish more comic book movies could be this good.

As this doesn't come out on DVD for another couple of weeks, I'm sort of wondering where you saw it.

Well Hellboy was the only good character in the entire movie just because I read one of the comics but yes other than that the movie was terrible IMO

I don't know. You see, I've not read much of the comics, I certainly had nothing more than a supeficial knowledge of the characters going in to the film, but I loved it. I thought that Ron Perlman was fantastic and that not only did I care for the good guys, but I was really interested in the antagonists as well. I thought the creature design was supurb the acting remarkable and the movie as a whole is without a doubt, my favorite this year so far. I understand that many do not share my opinion, but hey, I thought The Matrix: Revolutions was the best film of last year, so I'm used to people not shring my opinions.

At first I praised it like nothing else, but once I looked past the hype I could only really appreciate Perlmans performance, the visual aspect of it, and some inspired set pieces (Sewer scene was just classy, dump truck while Nick Cave played as they pulled into the musuem was rad, and Kroenen was the man).

made me lol heartily.

See I disagree with you on that point. I actually thought all the "character" scenes were done great and got across their characters very well. It was the characters that took me through this whole movie. Cause on the opposite end, I thought the plot was very weak. Lots of loop holes and some pointless (though cool) action scenes. But I thought the actors and their portrayals of the characters were great.

And I'm a fan of the comic. I don't read all the Weird Tales and BPRD, but I've read pretty much all of the Mignola stories and I thought they did a pretty damn good adaption. I eagerly await the SE with the extra footage as I heard somewhere that it goes a long way in helping the plot and pacing.

Plus, I'm very excited for a sequel. I think the more time Del Toro has to create a movie-Hellboy world the better they'll get. I think the more time he has with the characters and the universe they live in, the more sure handed he'll be and the better the movies will be. Kinda like Raimi and Spiderman. I think the more time he has to develop the Spiderman movie world the better they'll get. Same with Singer and the X-Men. These are guys I trust to develop these worlds and characters more and more each time.

That's a little off topic so, to make it simple and address the thread more directly...I'd say IMO Hellboy was a solid 3 1/2 out of 5.

Hellboy was one of the top 5 movies I've seen so far this year. It was exciting, funny, and suprisingly moving. Great looking film as well.

I tip my hat to it.

Like I said elsewhere, Hellboy was basically a Full Moon Video flick with a larger CGI budget.

Well, I certainly did give a shit about Hellboy and Liz at the end. That was quite moving, actually. I didn't love the film as a whole, though. The first two thirds were pretty bad with their endless and repetetive fights against Sammael, a cool monster but ridiculously overused in the flick. What made me enjoy the film in the end was the last third, the whole section below the graveyard in Russia with the Lovecraftian tentacle gods and Hellboy's transformation. That was really badass stuff even though Hellboy's final fight against the mutated CGI monster Rasputin suffered from poor SFX work.

Not a perfect film by a long shot but one I'll most definitely own on DVD very soon. It's also far from Guillermo's best, that honour still goes to CRONOS followed by DEVIL'S BACKBONE in my opinion. I'm curious what he'll do with the HELLBOY sequel, though, no matter the reservations I have about the first one. The HELLBOY comics are so full of great stories, awesome monsters and just plain wierdness (helicopter monkeys! talking heads in jars!) and I still think del Toro is the right man for the job.

A good movie, especially for a superhero flick, but Del Toro's strengths are as a craftsman more than a storyteller. He should focus on the script for the next one. Work in more of the charm of Mignola's universe.

Tambor's character was atrocious, and having him in the 3rd act instead of Abe Sapien was near-unforgivable.

I FUCKING LOVED HELLBOY!!!! It blew that "Ho-hum" X-Men 2 away. Talk about character that you don't care about....I couldn't have cared less if that whole university fell into the earths core. Hellboy brought something different to the table with all these DC, Marvel, and what not comic movies being churned out of hollywood studios.


Before Hellboy even hit the screen it was a cult classic, and with cult classics....either you love them or you hate them.



P.S. I am a fan of both the Hellboy comic and the X-Men comic....well, the 1980's X-Men comic

Indeed. It was over-hyped ad nauseam.

My personal test to see if I overall liked a film is to determine how often I asked the question "What happens next?" IMO this is the number 1 thing any filmaker in any genre absolutely must provoke from any audience. That and my Magical Ass Test. If my ass starts to feel numb or sore during a film then somethings wrong. Despite any technical flaws, poor acting, story problems etc, if this question remains throughout the film I would rate the film at least good. Hellboy had troubles, mainly a rambling storyline that could have been a little tighter. BUT throughout the film I wondered what would happen next and my ass felt fine. I would give Hellboy 3 cheeks out of 5.

Hellboy was good but no were near as good as alot of net folks would have you believe...

Maybe the 15 min they add well strengthen the last act cause thats were I had most problems. Some sweet as Visual shit thou in this movie (Tentacles from sky!)

6.5 out of 10 in my book

Great movie through and through! I myself can't wait for the 3 disc edition coming out.

And shame on you people for not reading Hellboy!! Its one of the greatest horror comics out today (other than The Walking Dead of course).

I dont read the comics, but i thought this was one of the best comic book movies ever. Maybe its because I love Selma Blair so much.

I really enjoyed Hellboy. I think if it fell in the hands of any other director then it may not have worked. There is alot of 'Lovecraftian' elements to both the comic and the movie and Del Toro translated that beautifully. Del Toro understands story and character extremely well and he was able make these complex characters from Mignola's comics work. I don't think it's his best picture, that spot is reserved for The Devil's Backbone, but I felt it was a very successful comic to movie adaptation. Viva Del Toro!

HELLBOY didn't suck, but it's by no means perfect, either. The characterizations are terrific, especially Ron Perlman. It's well-written.

My complaints have to do with the editing and the lack of diverse monsters.

Uh as fas as I know, Xavier's School for the Gifted is not a university


Im getting this on DVD. I'm trying to go into it with an open mind, but I was sort of scared
off of it by all the fanboy drivel proclaiming it the second coming months before relase date.
I have heard a lot of negative stuff about it, but some positive too. It looks pretty and it's inspired
by Lovecraft so it cant be that bad. Hell, I loved Van Helsing, I'm not a very demanding guy. Im asking
for a moderatly good flick and anything more will be a bonus.

I liked it. And that for me is saying something.

I had only one problem with Hellboy. Professor Broom's funeral sequence fell completely flat for me. The way the scene dragged out with the heavy-handed somber music just did not work for me, and I really can't put my finger on why. Because I liked the character work on Hellboy and Broom. They were both endearing. I found Broom's death effective, but the funeral was unemotional for me, and it was plainly intended to be a pivotal scene in the film. Maybe there were some scenes between Hellboy and Broom which were cut that would have strengthened the feeling of the bond between them, I don't know.

But let me stress, that was my ONLY problem with the film. Good movie, I thought.

"Hell, I loved Van Helsing"




If you loved that movie, you'll want to put a baby inside of Hellboy

I went in being a HUGE fan of Hellboy. I left the movie wondering what went wrong. It had some good moments, for example, the opening five minutes from WW2. But overall.. (makes fart sound). It was an average cgi action bullshit movie. It was missing too much of what made the comics so good. And the fact that it focused so much on a non existent love connection, a boring as fuck human BPRD member not to mention it only had one basic monster cloned thru the whole damn movie... didn't help. I got so sick of seeing that same rasta man monster over and over again!

It taught me one thing though... don't trust the opinions of others. This website spent so long sucking the dick of Guillermo del Toro that they didn't notice the movie he was making was a turd. And I really regret that Toro is doing the sequel.

I loved everything about the movie except for the damn Sammaels. Why make a Hellboy movie and have most of the thing be about slimy monsters with dreadlocks? There was so much more cool shit in the comics that they could have gone with. I did like the characters in the movie, especially Liz and Hellboy. Kroenen was pretty badass, he was like the Darth Maul of the film, shame he died though. This movie was pretty decent, but it could have been better.

Van Helsing should get best picture next to Hellboy.

I only paid a dollar and felt cheated. It's the last Hellboy movie that I'll ever see.

and I hope they make more and more

The only good thing about it was Perlman. Selma Blair seemed to be smacked out on heroin throughout. Didn't believe anyone was in love with her, she had less personality than a corpse. Rasputin was pathetic, about as scary as a ham sandwhich, and the Lovecraft creatures were dull and repetitive. Just another League of Extraordinary Gentleman really, except that piece of crud didn't get shilled to death by CC & Chud.

I have to agree with bunnymud. I loved every frame of Hellboy and I hope GDT makes a couple more of them. Some of those images stayed with me and I had to see it several times at the theater. Broom's vision of the apocalypse was one of the coolest things I've ever seen and the last act in the underground was fantastic.