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Oh, hell, boy!
Apr. 17th, 2004 01:55 amI saw Hellboy this afternoon, and was pleased to learn that the Quality 16 theater has matinee prices; my bus rides and my ticket together cost less than an evening ticket would have. And the (newly-discovered) bus route picks me up just on the other side of the park behind my apartment and drops me off a block from the multiplex eight minutes later. Hooray.
The movie was sufficiently entertaining, but not enthralling, kinda like Spider-Man. I haven't read the comics, but I gather the movie captured the tone and look quite well. They did a couple of surprising little things—the revelation that someone I'd taken for a flat character had a little depth, a nice jump-cut that coincided with Our Heroes' unconsciousness and required a little thought to puzzle out. It was visually very rich, lots of things to draw the eye, though the CGI was lacking in places. (Sorry, guys, but Gollum has spoiled me.) Ron Perlman was perfect, David Hyde Pierce distracting. Product placement, very distracting.
There were a couple of serious flaws. One, there wasn't much flow. Okay, sure, Hellboy is chafing at being confined; monsters are bad; Nazis are bad. But what are the monsters and Nazis doing? How is Hellboy stopping it? How does this subway battle contribute to the overall plan? In hindsight, there was a plot, and things more or less fit into their places in it, but as it was happening there seemed to be a lot of meandering. We needed more pauses for establishment.
Two—and this is a criticism of Hollywood comic book movies in general—all of the shots were what I'll call Flat Reality. Comic books play around with panel shape, lighting, text, scale, orientation, line weight, etc. to achieve various effects; you might have a whole page of panels focused on a gemstone, for instance, with all of the dialogue and action happening "off-screen", which drives home the message, "Hey, look. This gemstone sure is important, isn't it? It's what matters."
Comic-book movies are often so concerned with making the unreal look real that they forget to use filmmaking tricks to achieve some of the same results. They wind up looking more realistic but feeling less real than the comic. I noticed this during the graveyard scene, when Hellboy cast a spell. (Saying no more to avoid spoilers.) I don't know how (or if) the comic handled it, but what we saw was a two-shot of Hellboy and his friend, Hellboy mumbling something, and the spell taking effect. It was so plain and realistic that I hard a hard time buying it. If they'd cut to a wide shot and let us hear Hellboy's voice rising out of the ground, or zoomed in to his mouth and messed with the audio, or gone to split-screen, or something, I'd've been sucked in. The same goes for the finale; flat reality wasn't enough, even though it is enough for, say, Star Wars and other fantastic films.
I think it's this: comics can get away with a lot because they play with the reader's perceptions. If a movie just translates the basic comic story to the screen without also altering the viewer's perceptions to achieve the same effect then it can't get away with as much, and the fantastic becomes the flat.
Sure, I know that the point of Hellboy is that he's got this no-nonsense attitude toward the occult. But we the audience are walking in the door knowing that we'll have to accept demons and Cthulhoid monsters and Nazi supertech. We're already sold, coming in; you don't need to worry that we'll only believe you if every shot looks like you just set up a camera in the real world. Maybe it's just that I saw Kill Bill last night, but I'd like to see more tricks and tools being used.
Anyway, I don't want to badmouth it; it was certainly worth seeing if you enjoy good superhero movies and/or yummy pulpy Lovecraft. But it has some of the same basic flaws as Spider-Man and X-Men. I enjoyed all three, but I think there could be a better meeting of mediums. (See American Splendor and Ghost World.)
Other news: it was a gorgeous day today, 70 and breezy and sunny. Kendra got home safely from Saint Louis c. 11:30pm, which made me quite happy. She's asleep now, just to my left; she woke up just now to smile at me and say, "Whatever you do with the Wives' Club, don't tell them to erase what they've been doing." I'll be sure not to, dear.
The movie was sufficiently entertaining, but not enthralling, kinda like Spider-Man. I haven't read the comics, but I gather the movie captured the tone and look quite well. They did a couple of surprising little things—the revelation that someone I'd taken for a flat character had a little depth, a nice jump-cut that coincided with Our Heroes' unconsciousness and required a little thought to puzzle out. It was visually very rich, lots of things to draw the eye, though the CGI was lacking in places. (Sorry, guys, but Gollum has spoiled me.) Ron Perlman was perfect, David Hyde Pierce distracting. Product placement, very distracting.
There were a couple of serious flaws. One, there wasn't much flow. Okay, sure, Hellboy is chafing at being confined; monsters are bad; Nazis are bad. But what are the monsters and Nazis doing? How is Hellboy stopping it? How does this subway battle contribute to the overall plan? In hindsight, there was a plot, and things more or less fit into their places in it, but as it was happening there seemed to be a lot of meandering. We needed more pauses for establishment.
Two—and this is a criticism of Hollywood comic book movies in general—all of the shots were what I'll call Flat Reality. Comic books play around with panel shape, lighting, text, scale, orientation, line weight, etc. to achieve various effects; you might have a whole page of panels focused on a gemstone, for instance, with all of the dialogue and action happening "off-screen", which drives home the message, "Hey, look. This gemstone sure is important, isn't it? It's what matters."
Comic-book movies are often so concerned with making the unreal look real that they forget to use filmmaking tricks to achieve some of the same results. They wind up looking more realistic but feeling less real than the comic. I noticed this during the graveyard scene, when Hellboy cast a spell. (Saying no more to avoid spoilers.) I don't know how (or if) the comic handled it, but what we saw was a two-shot of Hellboy and his friend, Hellboy mumbling something, and the spell taking effect. It was so plain and realistic that I hard a hard time buying it. If they'd cut to a wide shot and let us hear Hellboy's voice rising out of the ground, or zoomed in to his mouth and messed with the audio, or gone to split-screen, or something, I'd've been sucked in. The same goes for the finale; flat reality wasn't enough, even though it is enough for, say, Star Wars and other fantastic films.
I think it's this: comics can get away with a lot because they play with the reader's perceptions. If a movie just translates the basic comic story to the screen without also altering the viewer's perceptions to achieve the same effect then it can't get away with as much, and the fantastic becomes the flat.
Sure, I know that the point of Hellboy is that he's got this no-nonsense attitude toward the occult. But we the audience are walking in the door knowing that we'll have to accept demons and Cthulhoid monsters and Nazi supertech. We're already sold, coming in; you don't need to worry that we'll only believe you if every shot looks like you just set up a camera in the real world. Maybe it's just that I saw Kill Bill last night, but I'd like to see more tricks and tools being used.
Anyway, I don't want to badmouth it; it was certainly worth seeing if you enjoy good superhero movies and/or yummy pulpy Lovecraft. But it has some of the same basic flaws as Spider-Man and X-Men. I enjoyed all three, but I think there could be a better meeting of mediums. (See American Splendor and Ghost World.)
Other news: it was a gorgeous day today, 70 and breezy and sunny. Kendra got home safely from Saint Louis c. 11:30pm, which made me quite happy. She's asleep now, just to my left; she woke up just now to smile at me and say, "Whatever you do with the Wives' Club, don't tell them to erase what they've been doing." I'll be sure not to, dear.
