Film
Bristol Film Festival: Hellboy
- Director
- Guillermo del Toro
- Certificate
- 12A
- Running Time
- 122 mins
Thnaks to director Guillermo Del Toro‘s sympathetic fanboy approach, Hellboy proved to be the smartest superhero flick of 2004, boasting greater emotional depth than a film about a giant asymmetric red bloke with a pointy tail and filed-down horns has any right to possess.
There are echoes of everything from The X Files and X-Men to Men in Black and even Raiders of the Lost Ark in the pleasingly preposterous storyline, which opens during WWII with occult-fixated Nazis using Rasputin (Karel Roden) – yes, that one – and his sinister, knife-twirling, surgery-crazed sidekick Kroenen (Ladislav Beran) to conjure demons from the Other Side, only to be thwarted by Prof. Bruttenholm (John Hurt). But not before they’ve summoned a peculiar little horned red infant. Fast forward to the present day, where the adult Hellboy (Ron Perlman), ailing prof and a weird psychic fish creature named Abe Sapien, whose provenance is unclear, work for the FBI’s top secret MIB-esque entity-busting operation. Just as Bruttenholm recruits a young protégé (Rupert Evans), ageless Rasputin and Kroenen pop up again to revive a multi-tentacled, endlessly resurrected beast as part of their ongoing plan to bring about armageddon.
Perlman proves an inspired choice as the cigar-chomping, cat-loving Hellboy. Rather than being constrained by his costume and make-up, he inhabits the role with a perfect blend of pathos, wisecracking and adolescent peevishness as he breaks stuff, whups ass, craves acceptance, and, er, rescues kittens. The action sequences are suitably comicbook-esque without succumbing to that rubbishy computer game look we’ve had to endure lately. Only the rather silly love triangle involving sulky pyrokineticist Selma Blair strains credulity – and that’s some achievement in a film as fundamentally absurd as this. Driven by Del Toro’s infectious enthusiasm, Hellboy is silly, occasionally touching and relentlessly entertaining.
is needed now More than ever
This Bristol Film Festival screening in Redcliffe Caves is part of the fest’s Underground Cinema series. Go here for ticket details and further information.
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