ViewGuide

Created Jul 20, 2008 11:38PM PST • Edited Jul 15, 2017 12:10PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Funny and bizarre, HB2 brings to life an extreme dreamworld that could only emerge from the unique imagination of Guillermo del Toro. This is a freak show of epic proportions. Think bar scene in the original Star Wars extended to an entire movie and you’ll begin to get the picture.

   The movie goes out of its way to make Hellboy lovable, opening with him as a sweet-natured adolescent and dwelling on his love of cats and those close to him. This mostly succeeds, and gives the movie more charm than the usual comik story.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Ron Perlman is great again as the tough yet lovable hero.

   Selma Blair, looking like a beleaguered Linda Fiorentino, fares less well as his love interest and fellow demon fighter.

   The main bad guy, strikingly played by Luke Goss, provides plenty of demonic energy and interest.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Del Toro wrote the story and screenplay, as well as directed. So though based on the Hellboy comik book, this is largely GDT’s show. And what a show it is. Even more than most comik movies, the movie presents not just an alternate universe, but alternate mythologies to populate them, an achievement that begins to rival what Tolkien did in Lord of the Rings. (Thus it is only fitting that GDT is now making not just one, but two movies of The Hobbit.)

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Great 4.0

    Pithy and frequently funny. Unlike Hellboy I, the jokes largely work here.

13. Music Great 4.0

    Barry Manilow, you’re top of the Demonic Charts.

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.7

    PG-13 indeed. Kids prone to nightmares (as I was) need to stay away from this movie, since it is a parade of the most lifelike bogymen you can possibly imagine.

    That said, the violence is denatured: i.e., gut wrenching fights and battles with only minimal blood shed, kind of like in Lord of the Rings.

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

19. Rudeness Salty 1.6

21. Reality

    Fantasy 5.0

    I was troubled by several goofy contrivances within the movie’s fantasy world. For instance, when our heroes get attacked by a swarm of small but vicious “Tooth Fairies,” they shoot them one-by-one, which is somewhat akin to fending off a swarm of bees with a 357 Magnum. You’d be covered with dozens by the time you blast one. Further, the Tooth Fairies clearly have the ability to swarm everyone and everything, yet leave our heroes alone for extended periods of the battle. In short, I found myself unwilling to suspend disbelief at key junctures.

22. Circumstantial Fantasy 5.0

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0