Review: Hellboy 2

One of the best moments in Hellboy II: The Golden Army occurs when Hellboy and Abe Sapien walk up to a little old lady, burnishing a canary towards her, prompting her to open up a door to allow them into the Troll Market. The scene itself it laced with humor, a sense of weird paranormal happenings and quite a bit of fun. The scene ends when Hellboy punches the lady (who's really a troll), and the audience knows right then and there that the movie isn't a serious affair, but something that the director and cast clearly had quite a bit of fun with.

The film, which follows up 2004's Hellboy, is an adaptation of Mike Mignola's comic book by the same name. Like the first film, it plays off of some of the stories, but is creatively seperate from the books. In this regard, director Guillermo del Toro is possibly one of the best directors to take on the franchise, and brings his own vision to the screen.

I've been a fan of the comics, particularly because of Mignola's unique artwork and the rich gothic and paranormal elements to the issues that I've read. It's a very fun comic, and one that has a lot of depth and meaning to it. The first film was a decent adaptation of the films, but by far, Hellboy 2 feels more at home in the world that Hellboy and the BPRD team inhabits.

For all intents and purposes, Hellboy: The Golden Army could be Hellboy: BPRD, for most of the team from that particular line of comics is present: Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien and Johann Kraus, who investigate an event at an auction house, which brings them into a plot orchestrated by Prince Nuada, who seeks war against humanity. He intends to reactivate the 'Golden Army', a race of mechanical warriors that had been stood down before. Hellboy and BPRD travel around, from the Brooklyn Bridge to Ireland.

There's some truly great moments here in this story. The Troll Market hidden under the Brooklyn Bridge far surpasses any of the magical and fantastic that's been seen in Harry Potter or similar films, and recalls del Toro's prior film, Pan's Labyrinth, with it's subtle elements. Ever since watching that film, I've been enamored of his vision of the world, and he's really the perfect person to take Mignola's own work to the screen.

Visually, the film is quite a bit of fun, although at points, I felt that the story was a bit lacking. The narrative gets off the rails for some of the character moments, and at points, the film doesn't know what it really wants to be about: Hellboy's own relationship with Liz Sherman, his out of place nature with the world and his own destiny and the story at hand. Between the three, the story feels somewhat stretched, especially as some of the same ground has been covered already in the first Hellboy film.

The only other thing that really bothered me was Johann Klaus. He's a very interesting character from the BPRD side of the house, but in those comics, he's really a consultant, not the leader that we see in the film. His character, coupled with a suit that was just a little too dynamic (hissing vents, really?), fell largely flat, given my expectations from the comics. Still, this is an adaptation, and as such, I'm not expecting the entire thing to be exactly like the comics.

Still, the film is quite a bit of fun, and a worthy addition that leaves the story somewhat following what's happened in the comic books (to my knowledge - I'm not overly familiar with the entire storyline - something that I'm looking to correct.) It'll be interesting to see if a third film is followed up, because the first two really set up some elements towards that end. However, my preference remains with the comics and their unique art and stories.

EN420: Gothic Tradition

Last night, after work, I drove over to Berlin, to Wonder Cards and Comics, where I was able to indulge in a bit of a pastime that I haven't kept up on: comic books. In particular, I picked up a trio of Hellboy one-shots: In the Chapel of Moloch, The Bride of Hell and Hellboy In Mexico. Hellboy's been a longtime favorite of mine. It's not a book that I read obsessively, but when I begin thinking that I need to get back into comics, it's the one series that I make sure to catch up on. It doesn't help that I met Mike Mingola a couple of weeks ago at Boston Comic Con.

Reading through the comics that I picked up yesterday, I was reminded of one of the college courses that I consider one of my best, more formative and interesting while in college: EN 420, Gothic Tradition. Taught my F. Brett Cox, Gothic Tradition was a class that I never intended to take, but proved to be one of the few courses that I draw upon, years after I've taken it. The course's content, looking at the literary history and themes behind one of the earlier roots of the modern speculative fiction genre, provided a heavy basis for my understanding of what I've come to read an enjoy.

The course was a surprise to me, because while in college, I had desperately hoped to get into a similar class on Science Fiction literature, which had filled up. A friend of mine had taken the last slot (and ultimately dropped the course a week in), and when the next semester came up, Dr. Cox began to teach Gothic Tradition, the next class in his rotation. While I'm still somewhat annoyed that I never got into the course, I'm ultimately very thankful to have taken it. Over the course of the seminar, it rapidly became my favorite, looking at a wide range of works, from John Keat's La Belle Dame Sans Merci to Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, but also up to more modern works of horror, such as the works of H.P. Lovecraft and William Falkner, up to Stephen King. It's a class that I wish that at times, I wish that I could take again, or more similar classes in literature theory.

Mainly, the course helped to instill an appreciation for not only the story, but the history and events that lead to different stories, and in a very real sense, helped to define my interests in the science fiction genre and history together, something that I frequently read and write about. Taken in that context, I largely see Gothic literature as a precursor to the modern day science fiction and fantasy genres, with supernatural or speculative elements ingrained into a story, helping to form a larger basis for fiction in general, and sparking the imagination. To quote one of the branding exercises of the then SciFi channel, Imagination Lives. This is one of the fundamental points of entertainment, where imagination spurs on entertainment, and as such, makes the speculative fiction genre one of the strongest in terms of literary value, variety and following.

Picking up my Hellboy comics yesterday afternoon, I was struck once again at the elegance and mix of genres within the comic. Of the three, my favorite was In the Chapel of Moloch, which sees the titular character, Hellboy, in Southern Portugal, helping a man who has lost track of a partner in an abandoned Church, now inhabited by a demon, who takes control of the artist inside, helping to inspire him, but sapping his life away. The comic is a rich blend of pulp, gothic and horror literature, complete with some fantastic artwork, and a story that draws upon a number of different sources. As such, Hellboy is a pointed reminder, (as well as several other recent things, such as Anias Mitchell's Hadestown and Josh Ritter's So Runs The World Away) at the influences of works written three hundred years ago. It goes to show that there is still a fascination with the unknown, the macabre, decay and fragility of mankind in all that we create.

The history and background of the genres is something that is extremely interesting, and the study of it, and the underlying literary theory helps to provide a good look at the present day, showing how the modern works of science fiction and fantasy have been influenced and formed. As I've learned, art is formed in the context of its surroundings, and in this instance, literature is no different, with the past shaping the present environment. In addition to a better understanding of what we read, watch and consume, it's also a good way to read some truely outstanding, fantastic and interesting stories.