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HELLBOY
Okay, so I'm not a Hellboy reader. But I can
appreciate a good character, and it was never for
lack of not wanting to. There's just so many
titles one can pick up right?
At first sight, I wasn't sure what to think of
this. It looked almost like a Men in Black meets
X-men meet the Supernatural ( Well okay, so X-men
had some definite supernatural aspects to it .)
But the concept sounded interesting enough.
Upon having seen it, I gotta give one thumb up. It
was "okay". Ron Perlman was quite good as the
title character and credit has to be given to
Guillermo Del Toro for resisting all attempts by
studio execs to horrifyingly change the character
( "Can he just turn red when he gets angry? That
way we can put a big name face in the title role?
Like The Rock! Yeah! The Rock is Hellboy!! ....
You're not going to keep the TAIL are you?" ). The
makeup was quite good, too between Hellboy and Abe
Sapien. But on the other hand, a lot of the CGI
work left something to be desired. Monsters that
don't quite look like they are in the same room as
the actors because they are sort of fuzzy in
contrast makes for a big loss to the illusion that
they are real for the characters involved. Not to
mention the very obvious use of Lovecraft's
Cthulhu as the ultimate main villain of the movie.
( Which again, not the first time... let's all
recall The Justice League's fight against "Icthulhu
... hmmmm... ".
Still, it was entertaining, and just enough
originality to not make it too formulaic (imho).
HOME ON THE RANGE
Okay, so it's a Disney movie. And it wasn't one of
their best, at that. It's just too bad that the
future of hand drawn animation rested on this one
title ( pretty much ). What? Previous RECENT
successes ( Lilo & Stitch ) were not enough to
warrant keeping on the hand-drawn animation staff?
But I digress. Though it didn't make it big like
some previous films, this is a cute film, that
still delivers as a "big production" feeling film
unlike many other animated films which feel like
drawn out episodes of TV Shows ( like many of
Nickelodeon's films. ) Though it does not leave you
with a lot of memorable scenes that classics like
The Lion King and the Little Mermaid would.
All in all, a fun film for the "family". The kids
are sure to love it.
Stephane Morrell
Laurier CIM Group
MCSE,CCA
-Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
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