Thursday, April 15, 2004

Hellboy

In a Nutshell: Most of it was pretty good, but a really crummy ending left me feeling deflated. Not a bad "fluff" popcorn flick, though.

Quick Plot: A demon from another realm is raised by a paranormal scientist to fight evil in this world. When the being who released him many years prior reappears, will Hellboy fight him and save the day, or join him and bring about the apocalypse.

In Detail: See what I mean? Didn't that last sentence of the plot summary make you just roll your eyes? They did really well for 80 minutes or so! Really, they did. I was into the story. Given the framework they had established, the story was plausible, even interesting. It has some unexpectedly touching moments, and plenty of great one-liners. Then comes the grand finale, and too much happened that didn't make sense, was not sufficiently explained, or was just down right stupid. There were several plot holes (during the "good parts" even) that I feel could have been solved by just a couple of sentences of explanation. With just a little more polish (and a significantly better ending), it could have been very good. As is, it's just pretty good. Worth a rental for sure, I'd say, and not a bad big screen flick for comic and sci-fi fans who need something to tide them over until Van Helsing, as long as you're prepared for the ending.

Will I Buy It? I don't know. I'm guessing no, but I may need to see it again to decide if the good parts outweigh the silly excuse for an ending.

Addendum: We did indeed end up buying this movie. We like it more than it deserves, and it was on great sale.

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