No, I'm not talking about Benecio Del Toro, but rather the other one- Guillermo, who recently directed and wrote "Hellboy II". We finally watched this latest fantasy/ comic book cinema creation, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. The first one I only saw in bits, and was never engaged by the ungainly, goofy "hero" played by Ron Perlman who is Hellboy. The plot of the first one was not interesting to me, and I wasn't overly impressed by the action or other main characters. In the second one, the story starts fast, after a few minutes of catch-up during which young Hellboy is being read a tale of the fairy vs. men battles of old that ended in an unsteady truce for peace. Obviously, this changes. I'm not going into the plot details, because I'm not good at describing action.
Since I first cracked open my series of Wizard of Oz books when in elementary school, fantasy creatures and lands have always fascinated me. Later, I got into the Tolkien books, and the world of Madeline L'Engle, of "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" fame. Being raised in a Christian background with early readings of the Bible unsurprisingly also opened my eyes to worlds that require imagination, looking beyond our horizons, and also some faith thrown in. Don't read too much into that- for some the Bible is literal, for some it's fiction, for some it's non-fiction history mixed with allegories of good and evil. Hmm..sounds alot like the Harry Potter books, the fantasy world of Middle Earth, and the realm of comic book fantasies like "Hellboy".
I like that better quality movies like "Hellboy" and "Ironman" were made this year that took the adult sensibilities and humour into account when writing the dialogue. These movies aren't made for 10 year olds, but are full of fast pop-culture references, adult wit, and salty lines that are easy to watch even when a big, red, devil-faced man is saying them.
Sometimes, adults need something more than serious platform movies like "Rendition" or "Babel" to entertain ourselves with. Sometimes, women want more than another Jennifer Anniston or Cameron Diaz chik flik to view while stockpiling our pennies for Prada. Fantasy stories of different worlds with creatures of unusual powers isn't something to distract us from the reality of our own religious viewpoints or daily life in the real world, but is a fun way to take our minds to a different level of imagination when we need to escape. Fantasy worlds have existed in men's minds since our long ago- evolution- maybe since the first cave man was told to do the dishes and his mind started to wander away from his wife and kids to some beautiful world of horses, dwarves, elves and beautiful women and men of some other place.
So, if you ever feel the need to watch an entertaining and well-written story about heroic characters of outlandish looks and power, "Hellboy" is one of the best films this year of that genre.
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