MOVIE CHAT: HELLBOY

**rocketmaster** · March 31st, 2004, 09:53 AM

Welp, just got back from the premiere. I'm too tired to do a review tonight, but will try tomorrow night. I'll tell you real quick about being there though...

We got to walk down the red carpet, and guess what? Not ONE press person took our picture, LOL! We said hello to Ron Perlman, who was very nice, and I saw LeeLee Sobiesky (sp?) waiting on line for the girls room. I thought I saw Joe Dante ahead of me at one point, but when I went to go look for him in his seat I couldn't find him...so I'm not positive it was him. It looked like his hair though, and he has very distinctive hair. Said hello to Cabin Fever director Eli Roth (had a feeling he would be there, he's such a fan boy!), and sat next to this guy:
smitrovich as bletch

When he got up to talk to some friends, I asked his son...I know your dad is in a movie I have in my DVD collection that I watch all the time...what movie is it? Of course, Independance Day. I said, oh yeah! I LOVE that movie, but a couple of my internet friends by the name of Reved and Fozzy think its a piece of crap! Ok, I didn't really say that to him. But I whispered it to my left. Anyway, we sat with some really fun college aged guys who all have parents in the industry, and talked about all the other superhero movies for half an hour before the film started. (Which was the best part of the evening). We laughed our butts off. The actor's kid should be a pro comedian. The ushers were walking around giving out all sorts of free food...between us we had ice cream and popcorn and sodas and hot dogs and liquorice and milk duds! LOL! I didn't think to save the Hellboy popcorn bags or drink containers..they were just paper, but maybe I should have. [img]graemlins/hmmm.gif[/img]

Ok, tired now, must sleep, lots of meetings tomorrow!

kingfozzy · March 31st, 2004, 10:26 AM

Well get some sleep so that you can post a review later on today. I mean i'm still going to go see it friday, but I don't mind hearing a few spoilers beforehand. [img]wink.gif[/img]

**rocketmaster** · March 31st, 2004, 11:01 AM

Here's what the VIP passes looked like!
3.75 x 8.75 hard glossy plastic! Nifty! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

HELLBOY

**Tard** · March 31st, 2004, 05:19 PM

I never said ID-4 was crap! Sure, it shoulda been written to be more than WAR OF THE WORLDS in the present day, & the comedy should have been toned-down (couldn't stand the crop-duster-drunk who becomes the hungover-hero in about 10-minutes flat). But it seems to be the Devlin & Emmerich WAY, considering their other team-up movies.

PLEASE tell me HELLBOY doesn't turn into League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen with supernatural rather than mythic 'heros', please... [img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img]

Though, with a statement like this -

...talked about all the other superhero movies for half an hour before the film started. (Which was the best part of the evening).

am led to believe the movie didn't impress you.

[ March 31, 2004 01:22 PM: Message edited by: reved ]

**rocketmaster** · April 1st, 2004, 06:16 AM

"PLEASE tell me HELLBOY doesn't turn into League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen with supernatural rather than mythic 'heros', please... "

---------

Yeah, well kinda. I bought "League" the other day btw, I didn't mind it as much as everyone else, apparently. And I thought it was slightly more texturally interesting than Hellboy, sorry to say. But it least it was WAYYYYYY better than The Hulk.

Hellboy is not a bad movie. As I feared, it mines as much of Brian Singer's originality as it possibly can. I felt like I had seen the movie already. It borrows a lot from X-Men...not the big action scenes, but the more backgroundy parts that are just part of the overall atmosphere.

I never read this comic, so I can't speak on how "faithful" it is, I can only comment on it as a stand-alone story and in that respect it is not all that unique. Some of the religious iconicism had me rolling my eyes. It could have been ANY symbol at the climax of the movie...I wish they had used a different one.

We did get our quick "origin" tutorial at the beginning (similar to X-Men 1), but other than that we are inserted into the middle of a story. It isn't hard to follow, but we're missing a part of the tale (Selma's part) that may have been the most interesting bit.

Selma Blair was darling and beautiful. Ron Perlman seemed slightly miscast by comparison. His signature character is one of soft spoken, quiet power, and that is indeed what he played here again. However, in a comic book action movie, one expects a little more VAVOOOM coming off the lead actor. His vibe was just kinda anti-climactic. Everytime there's all this carnage exploding around him, he just mopes through it, grumbling, "Oh, yeah, this is my job, it's what I do." yawn.

There's an amphibious character...I was so distracted by how much he was a carbon copy of C3PO, that it took me a while to realize it was the voice of David Hyde Pierce (Niles Crane from Frasier). His imitation was so identical, you gotta wonder if he'd been practicing it since he was a child.

John Hurt was the soul of the movie. His appearance was altered enough that at first I thought it was just a guy who looked like him a bit. Nice transformation.

Jeffrey Tambor played Ron's government nemesis. I thought it was odd that Tambor was taller than Perlman throughout the film, I would have stuck an extra 3 inches in Ron's Frankenstien boots meself.
Strange casting in Tambor, didn't really work for the character.

The best bits were the comedic ones, and they seemed like they were spliced out of a different movie, and somewhat forced to boot. It looked like they were not exactly sure what kind of movie they were making. If you listened to the director's speech before the film started, he spoke that he had this incredibly strong unwavering vision that took him 5 years to bring to fruition. Maybe so, but it really doesn't LOOK that way.

The music was nothing more than exactly what you would expect. The sound effects often drowned out the dialog, and the theatre had the volume so loud I had to watch the whole thing with tissues in my ears.

Eh, I give it a C+ to B-.
It needed more cats.
Looking forward to hearing your take on it!

**Tard** · April 1st, 2004, 06:28 PM

I never read HELLBOY comics, so don't know what stature HB has besides being stocky in a trenchcoat. But Ron Perlman is 6'3", difficult to find someone noticably taller. A nemesis would likely be shown larger than a 'hero', give the demon some form of handicap against his foe, if only height. Sounds like a committee-meeting choice; with Tambor standing on a few phone-books during face-to-face encounters.

OH NO!! I totally despised League-oEG! ...See? I don't even want to spend the time to write-out the full title anymore! [img]wink.gif[/img] SFX over acting & story.

COMEDIC bits?! I miss the 70's & 80's so damn much... When grim movies didn't feel the need to 'lighten-the-mood' with silly banter jokes & stereotypical characters added for chuckle-purpose only.

**rocketmaster** · April 1st, 2004, 06:42 PM

NO! I wasn't kidding! David Hess really did a couple of guests spots on that show. (this whole April Fools Day thing just pisses me off)

And, Tambor wasn't his ENEMY. I'm sorry, I used the wrong word. If that were the case I would agree with you. No, he was just the inevitable whiny goverment bureaucrat, they were actually supposed to be on the same side. It would have worked better if he had been 5'6", rather than taller than the HERO!

**Tard** · April 2nd, 2004, 01:26 AM

Eek. Just with your use of the word 'inevitable' in that sentence, sounds like a throwaway-character, a stereotype we could do without. A name added just to fill-in the cast-list.

I'm too farkin' narcissistic, dammit! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

**Tard** · April 2nd, 2004, 04:19 AM

Maybe this weekend.

GAWD!! "But it least it was WAYYYYYY better than The Hulk." Don't put it like that!!! That's like saying Jurassic Park was WAYYYYYY better than TOHO's Godzilla vs. Mothra movie...

And shucks. Sounds like Ron Perlman just got to reprise his role from City Of Lost Children with prosthetics. ...remembering earlier Perlman work in some 80's 'Beauty & The Beast' TV-series... AAHHHH... He wasn't in MANIMAL too, was he?

[ April 01, 2004 12:27 PM: Message edited by: reved ]