Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Feel The Right Hand Of Doom! And Rejoice!
In the dark ages, before The Dark Knight and The Iron Man, Guillermo del Toro's “Hellboy” was the the first decent comic book adaptation in at least a decade. The premise was darkly comic, the material sharply human, and the characters behaved as people who happen to be possessed with great powers, and not faceless ciphers designed to cynically push the plot forward to the next explosion.
After the high watermark of Iron Man and The Dark Knight, Del Toro returns with “Hellboy II : The Golden Army”, which sees him melding his unique visual style and adept storytelling powers to a visual feast. “Hellboy II” would be the best film of the summer, were it not for the Dark Knight. Over a succinct, luxurious two hours, Del Toro masters a fine and intricate tale that borrows from ancient mythology and seamlessly matches it to a glorious imagination. The plot is classic McGuffin : Bad Guy looks for Thing With Which He Can Control The World, Hellboy tries to stop him. There’s an awful lot more to it than that, of course, which is what makes it so effective.
Ron Perlman portrays probably the single best heroic character turn in filmed history. Unlike Batman, who is a deeply boring Bruce Wayne, or Reeve’s equally boring Clark Kent, Hellboy is a fully fleshed out character. We’re watching someone who happens to have the fist of Hell on his arm. Hellboy is a person, who behaves as real people do. Heroes aren’t made ; they’re born that way, wether they like it or not. And Hellboy doesn’t really like it. Hellboy reminds me of me in many ways : he loves cats, and simple pleasures. He’s never happier than with a cigar, or a beer, or a simple song.
“I would give her the world, and she wants me to do the dishes.” he says at one point. And we all know how he feels.
The rest of the film is starkly inventive. The addition of Johan Krauss to the team provides Hellboy with a fine, and ambigious foil. Is he a baddie? Or a goodie? By fulfilling all the stereotypes of an possibly insane, officious German scientist, you half expect Krauss to turn in a tired shock twist, and Del Toro paints this ambiguity with great skill to create a character who is likable - and, over time, really quite a lot of fun to watch. Each of the characters in this film could carry a film in their own right.
There’s also a wonderful scene which sees Hellboy and Abe bonding over a well known, and utterly naff singer of the 70’s. The following scene, awash with super powered hangovers, is a joy to watch, as Hellboy and Abe face an enormous challenge with a stinking attack of hair of the dog. They stumble and slur, and it’s far more realistic - if a film about a guy with the Fist Of Hell on his arm can be realistic - than anything else I’ve seen in this genre in eons. Hellboy’s the kind of guy you’d probably want to know as a friend. Could you really say that about Batman or Superman?
Elsewhere, Del Toro paints the entire film in a lavish visual style. He’s fast found a unique and brilliant voice, a unique cinematic vision that affects everything he does with a grotesque beauty. The Golden Army, which gifts the film its name, is a wonderful, fascinating invention. They, like the Elementals, makes you wonder why no one thought of them before. And the fight scenes are wonderful, never over complex, always inventive, never boring, nor reliant on the Uncanny Valley of alienating CGI. There’s a ton of CGI here, but it looks real. The infamous Troll Market outdoes the Cantina Bar and Diagon Alley by several light years as a visual feast : it’s a market where Trolls just do Troll things, minding their own business - and its awesome. Like, first time you saw the Death Star awesome. It’s never showy, never overdone, it just is, and it’s there to serve the plot and the plot alone.
There’s gorgeous, rich and stunning set pieces, there’s terrifyingly plausible villians and monsters, there’s laughs galore, and there’s absolutely everything you want from a Summer Blockbuster including brains. The type not eaten by Zombies. “Hellboy II” is Del Toro’s best film yet, and makes me sad yet overjoyed that he’s got “The Hobbit” coming next - because that means a long wait before the inevitable, and inevitably brilliant, “Hellboy 3”.
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