Hellboy (2004)

Over the years their have been a lot more comic book movies then you may have realized and a lot of them came out way before the MCU was officially a thing. One of the film franchises that slipped through the cracks for me over the years was the Dark Horse Comics original Hellboy so I thought there was no better time than now to check out the 2004 film that was written and directed by the great Guillermo del Toro (The Shape Of Water). Back towards the end of World War II, the Nazis were on the retreat and about to lose the war when they decided to revert to the dark arts to try and summon a demon from the other world. The only problem is that they summoned a baby demon and the allies won and adopted the baby demon calling him Hellboy (Ron Perlman). Now it's 60 years later and the conjurers are back to finish the job. The film also stars Doug Jones (Ouija: Origin Of Evil) as Abe Sapien, John Hurt (Alien) as Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm, Selma Blair (Cruel Intentions) as Liz Sherman, Rupert Evans (The Man In The High Castle) as John Myers, Karel Roden (The Bourne Supremacy) as Grigori Rasputin, Jeffrey Tambor (How The Grinch Stole Christmas) as Tom Manning, Ladislav Beran (Blade II) as Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, and Biddy Hodson (Doctor Who) as Ilsa Haupstein.

I have to be completely honest in saying that I don't know what was wrong with this Hellboy film that they had to remake it? I found this to be a very enjoyable film to watch from Ron Perlman as the title character to the bad ass underrated villain KRK (played by Beran) who should have been used more in my opinion. In my opinion, the story was a pretty solid one as Rasputin has returned from the dead once again to try and finish the job, but there is only one problem and that is that he needs Hellboy to complete it so what happens next is a game to sucker him in. Then there is the imagery that is shown in this film from the scene with the beast from the other world to KRK and what he really looks like underneath that mask which is horrifying, but excellent at the same time. Could there have been some improvements to the film? I am sure there could have been with just about any film that comes out now that we look at them years later, but this film was fun. My only criticism is that I thought less could have been done with the whole love angle, but I get why it was included because it did provide some decent laughs at times. Doug Jones is the man as he played Abe Sapien in the film and he does a fantastic job transforming himself into the roles. That is why he is so sought after in Hollywood for what he can bring to the table. I am going to give the film an B+ for a final grade.