I was first introduced to Hellboy through the first movie.  I thought it was great.  It showcased some cool villains, an original antihero, and a creatively crafted story.  Surprisingly, I even enjoyed the love story which is one aspect of plot that is usually so overdone its vomit inducing.  All in all I was fulfilled and satisfied.

Fast forward about two years, the movie had all but seeped out of my subconscious and replaced by whiskey and student papers.  One student, who was particularly interested in mythology, handed me the first Hellboy trade; I was amazed.  I immediately picked up all the trades and enjoyed each one more than the previous.  Given my training in literature with a focus on mythology I am always interested in the subject matter these books have to offer, and this experience was no different.  I was especially drawn to “The Troll Witch” where the Rasputin character was given a dimension the film never explored.  Again, the old adage came to mind…the movie is never as good as the book, though in this case it did come close.  “The Chained Coffin” and “Weird Tales” was also impressive with the use of various mythologies like vampires, ghosts, gods and demons, magic and science.

Fast forward another year.  Since I was impressed by the Hellboy series, and had just finished reading Busik / Nord’s ”Conan” series (another great series both in story and artwork) I decided to give “BPRD” a chance.  Again I was blown away.  I liked these characters and stories more so than Hellboy, though a lot of them overlap from that series.  I thought Roger and Johann Krauss stole the series though they are secondary characters.  I’ll admit I have a soft spot for characters like Roger who is childlike giant with a big heart and playful personality; and Johann who pays a steep and unusual price for love.

As you can probably tell I did admire the work put into the books, and then I saw the second movie.  WHAT A STEAMING PILE OF STINK.  The love story was McTarded but that is just the edge of the toilet paper on this one.  Other elements of the plot were equally ridiculous.  The elf twins? COME ON! Then they tried to balance out that little slice of stupidity by having Liz being pregnant with twins … stroke of genius … for me to POOP on.  When the elf brother was hurt, his sister felt the pain also.  Remind anyone of Tomax and Xamot, the Crimson Twins from G.I. Joe?  What happened?  I think Guillermo del Toro’s ego got the best of him.  His visual style had really started to blossom, and he wanted to showcase his talent for character design.  Listen up Guillermo, we know you can direct movies.  We’ve all seen “Pan’s Labyrinth”, “Devil’s Backbone”, “Blade 2″ etc…  Everyone thinks your vision for characters (especially the ones with strange eyeball placement) is exceptional but please, please, please take more than two hours working on the story.  You can’t compensate for a bad story with beautiful or stirring imagery, it just doesn’t work.  You dropped the ball on this one.  You sold out fans and tried to force the characterization to fit into you’re world instead of you understanding and showing us your image of their world.  I know it’s only $8.00, but I want my money back.  I haven’t been this disappointed since dating that girl in college for two weeks before I noticed the bulge in her pants….yeah very disappointing and uncomfortable the next morning.  But these are just my opinions.  So all the other Hellboy fans (comics and films) out there; I’m very curious to know … what do you think?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 12:36 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.