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Rhune
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'Hellboy' -- A slice of heaven for moviegoers
« on: Mar 30^th, 2004, 4:15pm »

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'Hellboy' -- A slice of heaven for moviegoers
By Nick Nunziata
CNN Headline News
Tuesday, March 30, 2004 Posted: 12:56 PM EST (1756 GMT)

(CNN) -- One of the great things about having a passion for film is those rare moments when a movie reminds you of why you fell in love with the medium in the first place.

A lot of people discovered their love of movies through "Jaws" or "Star Wars." Then, people found "Ghostbusters" and "Die Hard" or the Indiana Jones films. In recent memory, the obvious candidates would be "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy as well as the "Matrix" series. This Friday brings another film to add to that list: "Hellboy."

As a movie-watching culture, we take the good with the bad, and often the bad far outweighs the good. The magical moments are fleeting, with potentially classic scenes often buried under fast edits, showy special effects and a steady diet of loud noise and music.

Director Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy" is a choice cut of a film, something with true heart and emotion that manages to achieve summer movie spectacle without sacrificing story in lieu of showing off. It's a film with a memory.

There's a lineage, a bloodline living under the surface of the film that recalls pivotal stories such as "Beauty and the Beast," those great Ray Harryhausen "Sinbad" films and more recent classics both gothic and adventurous. For a cynic such as myself, who spends his days complaining about the business, "Hellboy" a breath of fresh air, even if it may carry a hint of sulfur. For people starting to develop their own movie tastes, it just might be their "Jaws" or their "Ghostbusters."

It's the rotten apples (bad movies) that spoil it for the bunch. But it's those few examples of purity that keep us from developing a "glass is half-empty" mentality. It's all too easy to become grumpy and unforgiving in our tastes, adopting that mentality of parents and grandparents about how "they don't make 'em like they used to" anymore.

We need a fresh, uncompromising film such as "Hellboy" to clear the air and remind us why we trade movie quotes, debate over which franchises are the best and plunk down untold dollars at the box office and DVD store.

In a way, I think movies can keep us young, if only for a moment. If we can regain that feeling we got the first time we saw Indy outrun the boulder, James Stewart grapple with Raymond Burr in "Rear Window" or King Kong "fall" for Fay Wray, then some of their immortality rubs off on us. It's why movies have a power over us all, regardless of age, race and political leaning.

"Hellboy" is the latest film that battered my walls of cynicism to a pulp. It reminded me of when I was the ripe age of 5, watching Steven Spielberg's shark wreak havoc by peering through the sleeve of my coat -- too afraid to watch but too enraptured not to see what was happening. "Hellboy" is an underdog, a relatively inexpensive summer movie based on a comic book that aspires to be something more.

How can you not root for a movie like that?

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Beavis
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Re: 'Hellboy' -- A slice of heaven for moviegoers
« Reply #1 on: Mar 30^th, 2004, 11:55pm »

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I'm going to see this Thursday, I heard it was really good.

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sweetmisery
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Re: 'Hellboy' -- A slice of heaven for moviegoers
« Reply #2 on: Apr 1^st, 2004, 11:58am »

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I have seen some short clips and interviews, it looks cool but I hope it wont end up like "LXG" which was interesting at first but disappointing at last.

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Rhune
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Re: 'Hellboy' -- A slice of heaven for moviegoers
« Reply #3 on: Apr 2^nd, 2004, 2:24pm »

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(AP) -- Hell might be an interesting place upon arrival, but it's bound to get dull after an eon or two.

Likewise, "Hellboy" begins as a refreshingly wry alternative among the flood of gloomy comic-book heroes Hollywood has tossed on the big screen.

Despite Ron Perlman's merry, self-deprecating presence as the title demon, "Hellboy" gradually flames out amid the usual chaos of too-loud explosions and too-numerous computer-animated beasties.

The movie ends up looking like a concoction of everything remotely demonic that has come before it, a hodgepodge of "X-Men," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "The X-Files" and "Ghostbusters."

Adapted from Mike Mignola's Dark Horse comics by writer-director Guillermo del Toro, "Hellboy" opens in the closing days of World War II as Hitler's occultist forces, aided by legendary lunatic Grigori Rasputin (Karel Roden), uncork a gateway from our world to hell to bring about Armageddon.

An Allied strike force toasts Rasputin and company and closes the portal, but not before a bouncing baby demon with red skin, horns and a tail slips through.

Intended as a harbinger of the world's end, Perlman's Hellboy instead is raised by kindly Professor Broom (John Hurt). With super strength, an arm of stone to batter down walls and invulnerability from fire, Hellboy becomes the mainstay of the U.S. government's Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, pummeling monsters and sending them packing back to hell.

"There are things that go bump in the night," says Professor Broom. "And we are the ones who bump back."

Working-class hero
Sixty years after his previous attempt, Rasputin returns from beyond with a plot to bring Hellboy back into the fold and lay waste to Earth.

Perlman has had a prolific career as a modern Lon Chaney playing creatures and disfigured figures, including the ugly half of TV's "Beauty and the Beast." As Hellboy, he has a similar brute-babe relationship with the bureau's resident firebug, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), a woman who can set things ablaze when angered.

Hellboy's new FBI ally, John Myers (Rupert Evans), also ends up his rival for Liz's affection.

Rounding out the cast are Jeffrey Tambor as an overbearing FBI honcho and Doug Jones as Hellboy's aquatic mutant sidekick Abe Sapien, both adding healthy doses of humor.

Perlman is his own best comic relief, though, wisecracking through endless battles with hellhounds, chomping cigars, guzzling Red Bull and filing down his horns so he can fit in among polite company.

Born a demon, Hellboy is a poster child for the nature-vs.-nurture debate, an example that even the baddest seed can walk the path of virtue, albeit with some side trips into adolescent hijinks.

Del Toro omits the usual dark-side brooding of the superhero tempted to use his powers for personal gain, instead presenting a crusader whose flaws are simply part of his character and who approaches his job with working-class resignation.

Unfortunately, after setting up this fresh blue-collar scenario in the movie's first hour, Del Toro wallows in pyrotechnics.

"Hellboy," a Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence and frightening images.

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