Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Hellboy

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-04-2004, 10:07 PM:

04 April 2004, 12:30PM, Regal Cinema World 8, Eugene OR, House #3, probably DTS. Attendance about 40. Feature looked and sounded great; only 1 lab splice and some crap code in reel 2. Image quality was excellent, very sharp and lots of detail.

I enjoyed this. A lot of good eye and ear candy, interesting story, good performances. The CGI held up pretty well most of the time, but a couple of the physical stunts looked a little hokey. Worth the matinee price.

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 04-05-2004, 12:34 AM:

This is my favorite movie of the year so far (well at least until I watch Kill BIll 2).

I had medium expectations tempered by the cheesy lame trailers which the comic book fan boys loved, but I didn't care for. I thought this movie would be filled with bad CGI stunts akin to the director's last effort Blade 2. Let me tell you: this movie is not that inferior to an X Men in terms of the look. Also , it gets the real comic book vibe- not the fake overly obvious Dick Tracy type stuff. The production design delivers nicely. Sure there are a couple fo scenes you see in the trailer that are in the movie and are a bit cheesy.

If you took one of the X Men characters and gave it some more depth , that's Hellboy for you, if you want a simplistic description. Ron Perlman delivers a career defining performance. You feel for his character that is as charismatic as wolverine's. Selma Blair, for once, gets your empathy.She delivers a fine performance. Hurt is his usually good self. David Hyde Pierce delivers his lines for Abe in a nice humorous manner without making it too campy.

Great job by all involved in this production.

Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 04-05-2004, 01:39 PM:

Nice sets, good cgi, enjoyable movie filled with some great one liners! The only things that bothered me were the length of the film, and the re-hashed alien scene. I thought for a moment that I was watching "Men In Black 2". That part got kinda old.

Posted by Jason Thode (Member # 1854) on 04-05-2004, 02:55 PM:

ITS ALL ABOUT THE ONE LINERS BABY! Definitely has some good ones to quote as you go along your day.

I definitley have to agree with Pravin that it is my favorite for now till I see Kill Bill Volume 2.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 04-12-2004, 09:08 PM:

I think I expected a lot more from this movie. Instead what I got was half the movie chasing the same creatures over and over again, it got repetative.

The film actually was quite touching in several points, and I found that to be the best parts of the film, when it got to the nuts and bolts of the charachters and story.

However, when it got into action, it lacked severerly. There just werent enough evil dead nazis. Too many creatures and not enough zombie nazis.

Two out of four, worth the matinee, but just only once. Lets hope that the next director of this series will spend more time on story and interpersonal relations and less on slimy stinky bad guys.

Ciao

dave

Posted by Jennifer Pan (Member # 2035) on 04-12-2004, 11:30 PM:

Hellboy is HOOOOTTT, nuff said... Great movie just because of that [Wink]

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 04-13-2004, 12:08 AM:

Just saw this at Century Greenback (subtle vertical scratches throughout, SHAME!) and noticed crap-code dots 3 times during the second reel but nowhere else. I saw "The Dreamers" a couple months ago and that also had crap dots only in reel 2. Has this been common lately? I'm gonna write Sony Pictures and let them know I won't be seeing Spiderman 2 in any theaters- I've already stayed away from theaters for a while because of the crap dots!

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 04-16-2004, 05:12 PM:

This is a pretty good movie...better than I expected. It's a lot of fun with some good lines and characters. Bravo to Ron Perlman for an excellent performance as Hellboy. I really enjoyed this.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-16-2004, 07:28 PM:

I saw "Hellboy" a few nights ago (on a Monday night), but have been so freaking busy with other crap (my day job) I haven't had time to post a "review" until now.

Screening: Carmike 8, Lawton, screen #3, DTS ran through a Smart/QSC setup. 9:50pm show.

Pretty good sound mix. Enough so that the subwoofer fried itself before the movie was finished. Those drivers will need replacement. Damn! I will have to get the DVD though.
[evil]

I guess I would rate this movie a good, solid three stars out of a possible four. It was entertaining. It had some kick ass action. The ending was a bit lame, but I pretty much expect that being kind of a "I've seen it all" guy on the downslope toward 40.

I really liked the bad guy, Kroenen. That's only because he was a formidable bad ass and you could never see his face and he never spoke and there was no reasoning with the guy before he tried to kill you. Just how a bad guy should be. Very cut and dry (literally --the guy had sand in his veins). Helps drive a story. There was a wierd, alien quality about him. Get in his path and you're dead.

Of course, Ron Pearlman was cast perfectly in the title role. After seeing the film, I really could not imagine anyone but him playing the role. Very well done. He handled the action great and delivered some really good one liners: "I'm immune to fire, you're not!"

The rest of the cast, well, I dunno. I guess I liked Selma Blair's take on the firestarter character, Liz. I forget the deadpan response she gives to "that's a beautiful name." But I guess I like brooding "goth" ladies. Maybe the "art school girls from hell" kind of thing rubbed off on me a little back in New York.

The fishy guy character (looking up IMDB) --oh yeah, "Abe Sapien". Well, I was kinda wanting the hell hounds to eat that guy. He just seemed out of place, even though he had some funny lines and helped drive the plot forward in a couple places. I just have trouble seeing some green Captain Nemo fishy dude sharing the same stage with a wise-cracking, horned monolith who engulfs and propogates fire. And fishy dude's real name sounded stupid. They just should have called him "fishy dude" or "scaley guy" or "tide smell" or Niles or David Hyde Pierce. He sounded like Niles, even when the subwoofer broke!

Agent Meyers? Bah. Nice guys finish last. I know. He's just standing at the end when...well, I don't want to give the movie away. But he ain't getting any cookies being like that.

The Rasputin character was pretty good, but he seemed a little under-used. I probably would have liked more Hellboy-versus-Rasputin action than too much of the hell hound stuff.

Overall, the movie is a good popcorn chewer. It's probably going to be one worth adding to a good DVD collection. Word is there may be at least a couple versions of this. Sony Pictures is getting known for doing big phiggidy 3-disc SE's of movies (like "Black Hawk Down" and "Panic Room") and "Hellboy" may get the same treatment. I didn't like Guillermo Del Toro's "Blade II" sequel very much. But I do hope he does the DTS-ES 6.1 Discrete DVD treatment on "Hellboy" that he did on "Blade II". That may rock. I'm willing to crack a couple window panes over that.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 05-09-2004, 07:55 PM:

Finally saw this at the Century Suncoast, screen #3 matinee price ($6.00 now! [Eek!]

). Great sound, but the print was trashed--diagonal emulsion scratches and heavy dirt on all reels and the Century policy snipe. In other words, typical projection quality for here.

I liked this one a lot. As others have said, a good popcorn flic. I enjoyed seeing Jeffrey Tambor as the lead FBI agent doing an alternate take on his "Hank" character (i.e. Hank with a gun and a badge) from The Larry Sanders Show. Fun stuff!

[ 06-04-2004, 10:18 PM: Message edited by: Paul Mayer ]

Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 06-20-2004, 03:45 PM:

Finally got to run this at my theatre. I was really impressed by the soundtrack mix on this one. As good as any I have ever heard.

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 09-22-2004, 04:12 PM:

"Hellboy" arrived on our screens some days ago, and I liked it very much. Great lead actor, many great lines and OK visual effects, except the showdown with the 2-mile-high beast.

Great fun ...except for the dreadful print quality. I checked focus myself, but anything below a medium closeup looked soft and unsharp. Fine-grained but unsharp, and all reels looked equally unsteady (preshow in same format on same projector was fine). Thanks for another high speed garbage print...

[thumbsdown]