Hellboy rules.

Hellboy is great. Mignola is great. His work on Alpha Flight, ehh. His work on Cosmic Odyssey is super-nice. I love how John Byrne used to write dialogue for Hellboy back in "the day" because Mike didn't have confidence in his lyrical skillz - ha ha ha ha ha. (What the hell is Byrne doing nowadays?)

the trailer looks like the usual people jumping around and stuff - i.e. about as much fun as Men In Black.

! you _do_ hate fun!

and Andrew, if you use this as an excuse to bring up my heterodox taste in films I will HIT YOU WITH A BOOK next time I meet you. and it'll be a bigger one than the one you hit Lara with.

But if you have something you want to get off your chest about what film you like, feel free.

why should it be like that? the comic isn't.

Yes it is.

The one Hellboy comic you read, was it Hellboy Junior?

I'm sorry to be so dismissive... maybe I read a bad limited series.

and world war two RoXoR.

Now if Hellboy the film =
10 well-explained evil lurks in clouds of mustard gas
20 evil jumps around and around in shoddy CGI shots
30 Hellboy clobbers it
40 GOTO 20
...I wouldn't want to see it, really.

the moralizing was too obv. in places, and abe sabien didnt have enough lines.

still fine film, lots of phun, gr8 adventure, et. al

And not just Seth Green but Seth Green in scenes with Linda Cardellini. C'mon, that's cool. Would it be cooler without a cartoon dog? Sure, but what wouldn't? The world's an imperfect place.

(The other similarity to Indiana Jones: it would be really easy to do a sequel to this movie without it feeling the least bit forced or tacked on.)

Through the whole movie, I thought Abe was voiced by David Hyde Pierce. And when John Hurt's name rolled in the credits, I couldn't figure out who he'd played. I'm usually better at recognizing people.

(No Scooby or Starsky double feature today, I got plenty done yesterday but the girlfriend didn't.)

But he is, isn't he?

Ghostbusters isn't a comic book movie, but I think the "we're just regular guys going to work, except work involves killing monsters" angle qualifies it as a Hellboy uncle.

Consistently? I mean, the Margot Kidder "can you read my mind?" scene, and the Jor-El's Prime Directive scene towards the end?

Technically Men in Black is a comic book movie, but next to no one had read the comic when it came out. (Ditto Road to Perdition.)

i love pretty much any and all of the brando stuff. especially when his face turns into a gigantic exploding psychedelic space crystal!

I don't think the bladder defense is good enough re: Margot Kidder's music video.

and yeah, i see movies by myself all the time! and i'm cool

re: Hellboy, I meant to mention the special effects for Selma Blair On Fire, too -- I now fully believe in the feasibility of a Fantastic Four movie that wouldn't suck. That was one of those nice touches, like when you know (obviously) that it's special effects, but you don't feel like they're trying to blow you away with "hey, look what we can do."

The spirit is mostly the same, and I don't know how representative the first book is.

First comic-book adaptation I've liked since Blade, but it dropped off in quality at the second subway adventure. Comments about it trying to fit too much into the movie OTM - but that's been the case with every comic book movie other than Blade, right? SpiderMan really suffered from the "here's the backstory, oh and a little action!"-syndrome

Baby Hellboy was awesome, the cat fetish was a nice touch.

Baby Hellboy was really great, although the Baby Ruth thing had me thinking Goonies (this isn't necessarily bad, I guess).

I like the fact that Jeffrey Tambor was not nearly as goofy as I expected him to be (especially since he played a similar role in Muppets From Space).

My favorite moment might have been in the subway fight -- the whole taking the piss out of superheroes always having to save cute little animals and babies and whatnot, so fuck it let's HAND HIM A BOX OF KITTENS while fighting the big bad hellhound.

(x-post)

Woah hold up let's back this up a second...Jeunet directed Alien 4!?!!?! Why have I not seen this yet!?!!

Plus, there's some really hot lesboedipal tension between Winona and Ripley.

I really, really wanted to like it. Bear in mind that I am a fairly avid comics reader, but I have never read Hellboy.

I just found it fairly cliched, corny and...well, boring. Ron Perlman was good enough (not great, though), but he had some terrible "one-liners" and I thought that the Hellboy character was kind of flat. I also pretty much hated that fake-looking fish thing. I didn't get the sense of "wow! comics come alive!" epic-ness that I got watching the X-men films, and felt that some of the pacing and framing would even been better suited to the comics medium (some nice use of colors, though). Maybe I missed something?

I would like to add that, on the advice above, I finally saw Blade last night and that really was something special.

Kroenen in the movie isn't really based on Kroenen in the books.

The thing that bothered me the most was Abe Sapien as a fucking C3P0 clone! That's just so wrong!

love those tentacley space demons though.

so anyway: hellboy rules (maybe lost the thread a bit at the end, tho).

Going back to the very first post:

the stories are great and well put-together and make good use of myth/history/etc without resorting to twee Neil Gaimanisms

Well it's funny you should say that because...Neil and his younger daughter Maddy are on set of Hellboy 2 for a bit cause he and Del Toro are buds. And Maddy is filing the various reports, with some photos.

good blog, i should read it more often than once a year.

coincidently, yesterday i was moving stuff back into newly decorated bedroom and dug out all the hellboys from the various boxs of comics. there are 26 of them. turns out i am missing #5, the wolves of saint august (although i think i might have the DHP issues that they were originally in).

one day i will read them all again.

am also missing optic nerve #8. calamity.

Don't worry unless you're a completist -- "Wolves of St. August" isn't very good. It's the first story that Mignola scripted on his own (<i>Seeds of Destruction</i> was scipted by Jh0n Byyyyrne), and the art is a little heavy-handed (thick inks and ugly, busy coloring).

BPRD (with art by Guy Davis!) is where it's REALLY at these days.

Is it? I was kind of bored with the early volumes.

Well, I'd read almost anything with Guy Davis art, but I do think the writing is also very strong right now.

OILY IS RIGHT

(wolves of st august £4 from ebay, including p+p and two other issues which i already have. also picked up optic nerve #8 and #11 without leaving my desk. woot)

Hmm.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/hellboy-reboot-works-stranger-things-star-david-harbour-1001462

I liked him a lot, both in ST and at the SAG awards, but I'm sure anybody should be forced to play Hellboy after Perlman.

trailer is up - do we have a thread for this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt5g5_1cKVk

def has a lot more of that mike mignola feel

looks pretty cool

though i think it's hilarious and sad how trailers have trailers for themselves immediately before them now.

Not liking that at all, the CGI stands out as CGI more than in GDT's movies, the wise-cracking feels like they took too much of a cue from Deadpool, Hellboy just doesn't sound right without Perlman's voice, Ian McShane is no John Hurt.

Good points:

1) Neil Marshall is my favorite kind of insane (see Doomsday if you haven't)
2) MILLA
3) It's gotta at least be better than Golden Army, which SUUUUUCKED

this is a neil marshall flick? ok I'm interested

Not liking that at all, the CGI stands out as CGI more than in GDT's movies, the wise-cracking feels like they took too much of a cue from Deadpool, Hellboy just doesn't sound right without Perlman's voice, Ian McShane is no John Hurt.

― louise ck (milo z), Wednesday, December 19, 2018

love u milo but this is crazy talk

1. CGI - longstanding tradition of CGI improving between advance trailers and release
2. wisecracking - have you read Hellboy?
3. Perlman - no, leaning toward hell no. love Perlman but his Hellboy was terrible.
4. Bruttenholm - agree John Hurt was well cast. McShane a little more 1946-1952-style but he's A+ in everything other than American Gods so let's see how it plays

Speaking as an unabashed lover of the books, this trailer alone is already more enjoyable than any of GDT's work with the character or his world. No telling if it will translate into a satisfying feature, but the tone feels right and Harbour is killing it.

Eehhhhhhhhhhh. I like Marshall, but his genre riffing I think is more miss than hit. This one looks cheap - CGI doesn't get polished *that* much * and less than charming, especially after the GdT ones, which at least had character.

Has McShane played the Devil yet?

Hellboy would have been better off without GDT period full stop.

Has McShane played the Devil yet?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Has he ever not?

lmao can't believe y'all gonna make me watch GDT's Hellboy again just to better catalog what it gets wrong

xpost I guess he is very devil-like in Sexy Beast!

Anyway, as someone who never read the comic, I liked the first one (esp. director's cut) a lot, and thought the second one looked great.

I have not seen this longstanding tradition of CGI improvements - when a movie seems like it's going to have the overall look of a video game cutscene in the trailer, it still does in the theater IME.
I've read Hellboy and there are jokes but it's more off-hand sardonic style than this. I'm not really into the Deadpool/MCU winking at the camera style.
if you don't like the Perlman/GdT films I can see this being better, I guess, but yr crazy

Barbour sounds like he's got Marlon Brando's cotton balls stuffed in his mouth

not being familiar with Hellboy before the films i thought the GdT ones were cool, but far from the types of films you can't improve on.

I think you could improve on the GdT films by stripping them down more (fewer fantasy elements)

Okay so (nerd hat on) what makes Hellboy interesting imho is the way Mignola uses cosmic horror as a framework for his interest in folklore, and what gives it oomph is Hellboy's struggle to find out if he can be who he wants to be instead of who he's fated to be.

GDT seemed to think what made it interesting was look there are SO MANY CREATURES! (which if you're GDT I mean, yeah, I get it) and what gave it oomph was Liz's struggle to not be Rogue from the X-Men.

tldr Hellboy is The Iron Giant and GDT made it Beat the End Boss and Kiss the Girl. He was always more interested in Abe.

if you don't like the Perlman/GdT films I can see this being better, I guess, but yr crazy

― louise ck (milo z), Wednesday, December 19, 2018

peace. xoxo.

btw I’m not blind - that is some sardo numspa-lookin CGI demon.

still better than GDT tho.

what makes Hellboy interesting imho is the way Mignola uses cosmic horror as a framework for his interest in folklore, and what gives it oomph is Hellboy's struggle to find out if he can be who he wants to be instead of who he's fated to be.

I thought this was literally what the first movie was about?

I liked the GdT movies, and thought Perlman was pretty good. I liked what I've read of the comics. I'll probably like this, too.

However, the feel of Mignola's art, which is about half the appeal of Hellboy for me, just can't be adequately translated to live action, IMO, unless you're going to go for some Sin City-esque hyperstylization. Has anyone seen any of the animated Hellboy stuff/is it good?

yes/not really? I mean, I literally forgot it existed and that I had seen it until this thread popped back up again yesterday

"Storm of Swords" is fine, haven't kept tabs on any other animated HB films.

I complained about this when the first movie came out that I didn't like GDT's decision to make HB and Abe hide their existences from the outside world. Having common folk talk to HB like NBD is a great little touch in the comics.

lol i literally contradicted myself in the other Hellboy thread. I rewatched both recently though and the very particular del Toro auteurism was more impressive on these viewings. the first trailer of this new one did look cool but the last one or two were troublesome. the funny lines didn't land and the direction looked very boilerplate. The Hellboy universe goes a long way with its inherent creativity, maybe there'd be some appeal there. but idk.

so much for my high hopes... by all accounts this one’s a fright pig. feel bad for Harbour and for Mignola, whose work deserves better

Such a shame. I really like a bunch of Marshall's B grade horror/historical films: "Dog Soldiers", "Centurion", "The Descent" - and was hoping he'd stay away from the cutesy GDT-isms and get at that sweet Mignola creepiness. Seems this is just a Z grade mimic'ing of the Del Toro stuff.

so I ended up seeing this after all. it’s overstuffed and undercooked but really not half as bad as golden army and much closer in spirit to the books, which remain unassailable.

a less corny soundtrack and maybe pulling two or three cheesy fight scenes would have helped a lot.

they tried to do way too much and presumably won’t get a second swing, but god bless ‘em for trying. McShane’s as wasted as he is in American Gods but Harbour’s a gem throughout.

The previews made it seem a bit Guy Richie Does Hellboy, which seems v. unlike the comic

just to be clear, this is not a good movie. and there are def bits of that, though if anything more Matthew Vaughn than Guy Ritchie. i mean, there are bits of everything. you could cut a trailer that made this thing look like Attack the Block. my take is just, huh, it's not as bad as I expected.

the fatal flaw is that the producers think bc HELLBOY is a comic book, Hellboy has to be a superhero. i'd hoped this one would steer away from the CGI action crap and toward the horror/pulp/melancholy/weird tale elements but aside from one or two shots, nope.

I remember at the very least The Golden Army (which I only saw that once, back when) looked gorgeous. From its trailers this one looks like a CGI public toilet.

an overhaul of the soundtrack alone would make this 50% better

an overhaul of the soundtrack alone would make this 50% better

Yeah wasn't great was it.
& it seems to want to be the first of several.
Seemed like a lot of lines were off rhythm or something.
Wonder how many people stayed for the post credits scenes.

Started watching this on Netflix. Barely 20 minutes in and we've had mediaeval england with king arthur and merlin and a bad witch, present day mexico where hellboy takes down a large bat-winged vampire, quick usa interlude to introduce ian mcshane, scene with baba yaga and unseen entity swearing revenge on hellboy, trip to england to talk about taking down three giants, flashback to hellboy birth scene, and then an unknown monastery terrorized by a large were-hog. It's a fuckin' mess is what it is.

'this' = the 2019 film.

all that is in the books.

https://www.comixology.co.uk/Hellboy-Omnibus-Vol-3-The-Wild-Hunt/digital-comic/691767?ref=YnJvd3NlL3NhbGUvZGVza3RvcC9ncmlkTGlzdC8zMzAwNg

(at least with the books you can control the speed)

Or all that stuff might happen spread across four series in six years.

at least with the books you don't have absolutely appalling green-screen work either.

could've been worse - the earlier books are full of cthulu and nazis.

(i read 3rd and 4th omnibus one after the other, about 1000 pages total, didn't really know how it split into series or the release schedules. it was quite a ride)

cthulhu stuff in the del toro film was great iirc.

i carried on to the end, funny how hellboy's story arc is so similar to the del toro film. baba yaga and the giant demons at the end were kind of cool, if they made another one and the story was a bit leaner and cgi better i'd watch it - i mean i'd probably watch it anyway since i make bad decisions about how to spend my time.

true of all ilxors iirc

except me

yeah this one kinda broke my heart in that they got a lot right but tried to cram so much in and then erect a single dumb Big Bad on top of that quicksand that it was almost unwatchable. idk maybe it's like a transformers movie in that it might actually work better if you were high af with no access to concepts of cause and effect and it was just, like, a bunch of stuff happening.

harbour did his level best with it all and i'm sorry he won't get another shot. ledge didn't even mention that technically the wild hunt was in there too lol, plus the twilight of the fay.

just started a bit ago and the fact the first twenty minutes has elements from about six different Hellboy stories doesn’t bode well

opening voiceover and the constant swearing seems very un-Hellboy

if you didn’t like the opening 20 minutes i have some v upsetting news about the rest of it

it is not good but is interesting enough to leave on while folding laundry

have to give them a small amount of credit for making the characters obvious enough that I can pick up on who they are before the script does a proper introduction