Shoot The Flick
Hellboy (2004)
(upbeat music) ♪ Like a badder than hell I be called ♪ ♪ When the morning dawns ♪ ♪ Oh when the night is over ♪ ♪ Like a badder than hell I be called ♪ - Hey there, welcome to Shoot The Flick. I'm Frankie Sparks. - And I'm Scott Weisenberg. - And we are a married couple who like to shoot the shit about movies. - That we do, that we do. ♪ And it's another episode of a spooky monster ♪ - Last week we covered Joker and since then we have seen the sequel, which was not great. - No, it was not. - Not great at all. - Avoid it if you can. - Yeah, I mean, I hate to say that. No, I don't, I don't hate to say that. It's bad, it's a rough go. But we are back again with a new episode of Spooky Month and another entry into the comic book genre film that we got going on here at Shoot The Flick. Don't worry, not all of our Spooky episodes will be comic book related. So Scotty, what movie did you show me today? - Well, we went back to yesteryear. - Not yesteryear. - Yesteryear. - Goddamn. - And we are covering Hellboy. - Released in 2004, which apparently is yesteryear. We were only teenagers in 2004, young teenagers, but apparently it is yesteryear. - I feel like-- - 'Cause we are 90 years old. - Well, I feel like everything before 2020 is now yesteryear. - Is now yesteryear? Jesus Christ. We only have four years and then it's yesteryear. So I was excited to talk about this movie 'cause A, it's something I'd always kind of wanted to see. It's always seemed interesting to me, but not only is this film celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the day that we are releasing this episode just happens to be the director iconic Guillermo del Toro's 60th birthday. - Ah, happy birthday. - Happy birthday. Guillermo del Toro. I love Guillermo del Toro. I haven't seen all of his filmography, but now that we have watched Hellboy, I'm on the road to watching his entire filmography and it's quite interesting. - I'm missing a couple here and there, but I've seen a good deal of him. I miss shape of water. I still haven't gone to that one. - I have that on the list. - But like I've seen Pans, I've seen Blade 2, I know he turned out Blade 3 for this. - Yeah, along with Alienverse Predator and Prisoner of Azkaban, apparently. - That would've been interesting. I can't see del Toro in Harry Potter. I don't know, that doesn't work in my head for some reason. - Well, no, Alfonso Coron the third one, I think. Wouldn't have been, I don't think that different. Guillermo definitely has a reputation for a sort of dark fantasy horror vibe. He's actually currently making a live action Frankenstein film for Netflix, which I'm really excited about. I was more excited when Andrew Garfield was gonna be in it, but I'm still excited 'cause Oscar Isaac's in it, so I'm down to clown. - It should be interesting, but coming back to Hell, I haven't seen Hellboy in quite a few years. - Yeah, tell us about your history with Hellboy, dear. - I believe I saw this in theaters back in the day. I watched the bunch, it was one of those movies that was like, "Hey, Hellboy's back on." Okay, so we watched it and I think I've watched this movie at least 30, 40 times. - Cool. - Makes sense, it's definitely got the sarcastic dark tone, which I appreciate. I almost wish there was more sarcasm and that kind of side to it. - Yeah, I think re-watching it now after being away from it for a few years, I can see it's got some problems. Now, is Ron Pearlman still great? 100%. - Yeah, he's by far the best part of the movie, for sure. - Is the world cool? 100%, does the effects still look pretty good when they're not CGI? 100%. - Yeah, I mean, even the CGI, 'cause we've talked about movies in the early 2000s and they're overused to CGI. What's great about GDT is that he does have a penchant for practical effects, which works great in this movie, but there were times where CGI had to be used. It's definitely not overused. Yeah, it looks a little uncanny valley sometimes, but it doesn't take you out of the movie. - Oh, no, not at all. Listening to the backstory of this movie and things that went on, like Del Toro had been trying to do this movie since the 90s. - Oh, yeah, well, he had become really interested in the Hellboy comics while he was shooting one of his first films called Mimic in '97 and it was apparently a very negative experience for him, but he really got into the comics and it was kind of a shining light. And then that became his dream project making this movie and he always wanted Ron Perlman for it. They apparently, the studio, once they finally okayed the movie, the studio wanted either Vin Diesel or the Rock. - Oh, for? - Which Vin Diesel wasn't even jacked yet, I don't think. - No. - I don't know, was he even still wrestling in '04? - He was towards the end. He might've just came into Scorpion King, but it was early rock. It wasn't even like the rock we know today. - But GDT fought for Ron Perlman, which was the absolute right thing to do. He's a GDT regular. I watched his very first film, Chronos, and I was very surprised to see he popped up because it's mostly in Spanish, I think. And then randomly Ron Perlman shows up and you're like, "Oh, hi." - Ron Perlman might be one of the greatest those guy actors. - Oh, absolutely. I mean, we talked about him a little bit when we did the movie Drive on here 'cause he plays one of the baddies in Drive. But yeah, I mean, he's so iconic, just his look and his attitude and all that. - But it never feels like, like there are guys who have been like those guys who pop up in like tons of movies and he's in tons of fucking movies. - Sure. - But he never feels out of place. He always feels like he's the right choice for whatever world he is in. But Hellboy, people have a split opinion of this movie because of the Hellboy comic. Because Hellboy in the comics is kind of much more accepted by society. Like he's generally a chill guy, but like, in reality though, and I think that's why El Toro does this, we would not accept a demon human man who's six foot 10. - Right, I feel like that's fair. But Hellboy is based on the titular Hellboy from Dark Horse comics. Created by Mike McNola, who was an executive producer and was very happy with the film. Yeah, I didn't know that he was like accepted in the world in the comics. There's a world where in the future, like this being could be accepted. But to introduce this being into a cinematic universe, you can't just be like, yes, this red demon giant man who's like however many years old, but he's 60, but he looks 30s-ish. - Yeah. - And, sorry Ron Perlman. And we're just supposed to all accept it and la di da. - No, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. I think that's why Del Toro takes it the way he does. Now, the issue with this movie, well at least one of the major issues with this movie, it feels like we're starting in the middle of something. - Sure, well, I mean they do like a cold open. It's like little backstory about how he came to the world. - And the cold opens great, but I mean, once the movie really gets into what the movie is, like we are just kind of thrust into this. - Yeah. - And it feels like we should already know who Hellboy, Liz, Abe Sapien, Broome, and all these characters. We should know who they are already. - Yeah, I mean, I think once we were getting into the movie, like I liked it, but I didn't like it as much as I maybe thought I would. And I think part of that is because they don't do a lot of characterization, like in depth really with anybody. Even with Hellboy, they sort of rest their laurels a lot on the smart alec attitude and all that. Liz is basically Jean Grey, light. Abe Sapien is fun, but he's like, you know, sidekick guy. Like, but there's nobody, there's nobody you can really sink your teeth into emotionally. - Yeah, the other issue is John Myers. John is supposed to be our audience surrogate, but he's just kind of bland and he doesn't really have chemistry with anybody else in the movie. - I don't, I mean-- - I don't feel like he can-- - I don't think he has any more or less chemistry than anybody else does with any. I mean, I'll say the people that have the most chemistry is Ron Perlman and Samo Blair, 'cause they're like the romantic couple of the movie, but even that outside of like really two scenes, there's nothing like really great there. Like, I feel like because Guillermo Del Toro is so known for the horror fantasy vibe, right? And he's known for like his great creature creation and his great visuals and things. I feel like we focused a lot more on that than we did the actual characters. Like, we just gave, you know, help boys some fun one-liners here and there. Even the story like I felt like it wasn't pace the best because we were just focusing on mainly the creatures, including how, boy, and like look how cool these guys look fucking fighting and they do. But I think the balance was off a little bit between aesthetic and emotional character shit. - Yeah, it definitely felt a little off. I think this is also part of the problem like again trying to do a comic book run in a two hour long movie. There's a lot you want. - I don't think that's true at all. Spider-Man did it around the same time. - Spider-Man did do it around the same time. But Spider-Man's a more well known character and you don't really have to get into supernatural shit. - I don't think that's true. 'Cause before Tobey Maguire Spider-Man. - Spider-Man was known obviously, but that was the first movie they'd ever made of Spider-Man. There wasn't a Marvel universe like that. Everyone wasn't used to superhero movies at that point. So Spider-Man really set the tone. I mean, Tobey Maguire Spider-Man really set the tone for superhero movies. - You are right. But again, if you had gone out into the world in 2000 and whatever, 2001 and gone, who Spider-Man to some random people, you're gonna get more people who will be able to tell you who Spider-Man is. - I understand that, but what I'm saying is that, if anything, Spider-Man teed up something like Hellboy to have a similar trajectory. Sam Raimi did a lot of the same things that Guillermo did here as far as like, oh, let's get some good one-liners in there. Get a little romance going on, a little action, a little fun creatures slash villains, whatever. He gave you the blueprint and you sorta did it, but it felt like maybe there was some gaps missing. And you can't say because Hellboy is a lesser known character that that means it wasn't gonna be as successful automatically because I feel like most famously now, Guardians of the Galaxy, when Guardians of the Galaxy first was coming out, no one knew what the fuck that was. And then it came out and ended up being one of the more successful franchises of the Marvel cinematic universe. - Again, you aren't wrong there, but I think- - I know I'm not, not kidding. - But I think in early 2000s, you have Gammodotoro who, he's got Blade 2, he's got Pans. He's not the Gammodotoro we know today. - Well, Pan was after this. - Was Pan after this? - Pan was two years after this. - Shit, I feel like Pan was before this, okay, nevermind. So he doesn't even have Pan yet. So he has Blade 2, that's it. - Now I haven't seen Blade 2, but like, how did he do with Blade 2? - Blade 2's good, I enjoy Blade 2, but you know, it's got some issues probably as well if you go back to it. - Are they similar to the issues that are in this? - Probably, yeah, they're probably very similar to this. Again, I haven't seen Blade 2 in a few years, but it's probably similar, 'cause I remember some of it, I remember Norman Reedus and some of the stupid things that happened. - Oh no. - And like, there are things that are fun and good, and there are things that are, you know, you kinda rushed through this. - Yeah. - And I'm sure, being a younger director, studios had to put their hands probably and it a little too. - Oh, sure, yeah. But I think they also clearly gave him some creative control here because they, you know, at this time it was fucking CGI city and they let him work practically. They, you know, they gave him Rick Baker's Makeup Studio and told him fucking go ham. They definitely put their eggs in a basket that like you were saying, not a character that's super popular. And I'll say like, it's not a bad movie. Like I liked it. - No. - I wish that they had done more in certain part, like I wish just certain things were tweaked, you know what I mean? - And that's fine, I can't argue with you. I admit it's got problems and probably because he's not the director we know he's going to become. - Sure, but I think he's definitely working out his-- - His kinks. - His kinks, but also like his staples, like-- - Oh yeah, of course. - He's developing his reputation because Guillermo del Toro really is one of those directors that like you see one of his movies and you know it's Guillermo del Toro. - Oh yeah, immediately. There is almost no one like him. And despite the problems with the movie was very successful, it garnered a sequel four years later, which I did also watch that and it's also pretty mid. I would say it's pretty on par with the first one, if not like a little less, but it's still fine. But this movie cost $66 million to make and grossed 99 million worldwide with a letter box score of 3.4 out of 5 stars. - Yeah, that's about right. - Not bad. And also if there is something to say for the fact that they did try to remake this movie twice, both in 2019 with David Harbour, which was a flop, total flop, and then apparently I didn't know this when we decided to do Hellboy, but they pissed out a fucking other reboot this year called The Crooked Man. I don't know. - I've never even heard of it. - Yeah, I don't even think it was released in theaters. But I think they just kind of, they tested it and it was so bad that they're just like, we're just gonna release this digitally. I don't know, but it's a real thing that exists, but they're both rated like in the twos. So there's definitely gotta be a reason why this version of Hellboy was considered successful despite it not being like, you know, S-tier echelon of superhero movies, while those two more modern reboots were trash. Well, did you see the David Harbour on? - I saw most of the David Harbour one. - What were your thoughts on that? - I felt like it was overloaded. They had too many ideas and what felt like very little focus. - Did you feel like David Harbour was a good Hellboy? - I think he was a fine Hellboy. I think he's in a bad movie. - Yeah, okay. - I think if you put him in a better movie, he probably could have succeeded. - 'Cause I feel like I remember when that was coming out, like, and the casting was released. People were cool with the casting. Like, it seemed like a good idea. - Well, he's coming off the stranger things at the time. - Right, and he's got like that like gruff dad energy. - He does. I don't think he's as wise-ass as Pearlman is. - Yeah. - Pearlman definitely brings it different. He definitely brings wise-ass, but he brings like image-shore wise-ass to Hellboy. - Yeah. - Which is why in the sequel when Liz gets pregnant, I'm like, oh my God, this guy's gonna be somebody's father. I feel like that's terrifying. And not just because he's a demon, but because he's a fucking image-shore asshole. - Yeah. A lot of people try to have tried over the years to get Ron Pearlman to like bash the 2019 one. I think even to this day, Ron Pearlman's like, I've never seen it. - Well, 'cause I think he rode really hard to try to get- - The trilogy. - Hellboy three off the ground, which I would be interested to see if it existed, but I think maybe too much time has passed now. But I, what bummed me out about the sequel, and you kind of warned me about this, that it was like the same quality as the first one. All the problems that are in this, none of them are rectified at all for the second one. Nothing's improved upon it. Even the stakes, I feel like, don't go up at all. Like it's just the same movie again. - Yeah. - Just with a different like mystical bad guy. I listened to a couple of podcasts talk about this, and they were bringing up things like, it kind of felt like this should have been a TV show. Like, oh, I want two episodes explaining this for this character's motivation and why this is happening. - That would have been nice, maybe, yeah. - But as much as this is a Hellboy movie, this is also very much an ensemble piece. And you want to know all these people. But you also want the actiony stuff where fucking Hellboy throws a fucking monster in front of a fucking train. - And I get that, and that stuff was fun. But I think even just for Hellboy, it would have been nice to get more into his psychological goings on. Like what's really going on inside this guy's head. And we didn't really do that very much at all. Like even, okay, spoiler alert for the movie that we're about to talk about. But when his own father fucking dies and is murdered, they don't even like do anything with that. Like they don't even use that as a real excuse. Like they have one scene with him and his love interest in the movie. And it's like maybe halfway to three quarters into the movie where he like gets vulnerable with her. And it's like not even five minutes long. And you're like, oh, that was like the best scene in the movie for me. I was like, oh, great. And then it's done. And then we get to the climax, which admittedly is good. But there's good opportunities here for like really good emotional shit too, like character shit. And we don't, we kind of just breeze past that stuff to get to the action and the creature features. And like it's cool and all, but like I feel like it keeps it from going just that one step beyond to being a great movie. - And you're probably right. But not only do we have our cool creatures, you have Hellboy. I like how Abe looks. - I do like Abe, yeah. - And I think Abe's a fun, cool little like-- - We love Doug Jones. - We love Doug Jones. You know, I like Broome and I think that's an interesting relationship that I wish was explored more with Hellboy and Broome. - Yeah, we're definitely gonna talk about that stuff as we get into the nitty gritty. - But again, we have Myers. - The FBI agent who's supposed to-- - Who's supposed to like-- - Come in and ground Hellboy in a sense. - Ground Hellboy replaced Broome. That's kind of his thing. He's supposed to be our audience member. I feel-- - He's bland, but he's definitely an audience who are getting that way where we're supposed to project ourselves onto him throughout the movie. I don't think he's bad. I think he's just like fine. Like he's just a guy. - He's just a guy, but he's just a guy. - But he's just a guy who, the secret society, he seems to be very fine with fishermen, Hell monsters, and women who can produce fire in their hands. - So Scotty, are you ready to get into the nitty and the gritty? - Yes, let's dive right on in to a Hell portal. - Fine. Yeah, the one thing I noticed about this movie going in to like our cold open and talks of creatures and portals and otherworldly tentacle creatures. Like I was like, "Oh, this is very Lovecraftian," which is also a very fucking garmel. Like there's the horror and fantasy stuff, the sci-fi, then there's also like a religiosity element to it. Like our father character to Hellboy, Professor Broome, he always carries around the rosary. - Well, yeah, it's a great mix of like horror, sci-fi, religion, slight romantic comedy. - Not really, I wouldn't say a romantic comedy, dear. She meets up with him with a case of beer in a fucking psych ward. I don't know if that's a romantic comedy. - But we get an award dump to start off our movie. - Ah, 'cause you know, when in doubt, you can always make your villains the Nazis. - Of course you can. It's never gonna be scoffed at the Nazis being the villain. - And we meet, of course, our main villains of the movie. Cronin, Isla, and of course, Gregori Rasputin. - When they said Rasputin, and they're like explaining who he was, they're like, "Oh yes, he was the occult advisor to the Romanovs." I was like, "We're doing an anesthesia connection." ♪ In the talk of the night ♪ ♪ Two, five, two ♪ ♪ Tell us the least ♪ ♪ I can go ♪ ♪ 'Cause you know, maybe there's gonna be another mention ♪ ♪ Of the Romanovs later this year in another movie ♪ ♪ Perhaps you never know ♪ - Maybe, maybe. So Rasputin, who, if anyone knows any of the lore of Rasputin, he was stabbed, poisoned, hung, shot, and drowned, and was still alive. (chuckles) - I don't think they include that in the animated movie. Just, just, so you're prepared for when we talk about that eventually, they keep that out of that one. - Oh, damn, children's movies. Anyway, but yes, that was funny. And Professor Broome, who is our father figure of the film, he is played by John Hurt, not in this younger, cold, open version of him, later on in the movie. I love John Hurt. He, of course, played Kane and Alien famously. He played Oliveander in the Harry Potter series. He also played a version of Doctor Who in one of the Christmas specials. He's awesome, of course, but he did pass away in 2017, unfortunately, but he does just lovely in this movie. - And he would have been the final in surrogate, just saying, but Rasputin is working for Hitler in this moment, and he opens a portal. I think John Hurt explains it as it's just kind of a space, like it's not outer space, but just a random dimensional space. To release the demon of chaos. And Broome and the army put a stop to that. Rasputin gets sucked into the dimensional portal, and all the other two Nazis get away. But we have to search the area, 'cause the portal was open for a while to see if anything came out of the portal. And, of course, what came out of the portal? - Hell boy. - Hell boy, a-- - Little baby, hell boy. - Who likes baby roofs. - Yeah, the army immediately just wanted to kill a little demon baby, I'm like, no, don't kill the baby. I know it's shitty CGI, but don't kill the baby. They got it was dark, 'cause the darkness of the cave they were in clearly obscured how shitty the CGI was, but it's fine, it was still cute. - It was cute, Broome quickly adopts Hell boy. - Yay. - And we get our lovely little CGI opening. - Yes, like every early 2000s action movie has to have a shitty, ugly, video game-esque CGI, fucking opening credit sequence over some heavy metal song. - Indeed, they do. And we quickly cut to the Bureau of Paranormal Defense. - In Jersey. - In Jersey. - Of course. - Our audience surrogate John Myers comes in to the Bureau of Paranormal Defense, and it's totally ripped off from Men in Black. - How? - The big giant building he walks in goes there. It's like a whole Men in Black thing. - Oh, he goes down the elevator. It's like a secret thing, yeah. Well, he's played by Rupert Evans. And yeah, like we've been saying, Scott's a little more mad at him, I think, than I am, but he's okay, he's just like a bland, was he British in this? - No, I don't think he was. - I don't know, he feels like he should be, 'cause he's just a bland white guy who's very like prim and proper. And Abe Sapien says he's pure of heart, and that's why Broome called him in to work at the paranormal building, 'cause he's like, you're pure of heart, and you will help Hellboy become a man, because I'm gonna die of brain cancer, so you have to take over for me. And it's like, why would you bring in this random guy that he doesn't know, and thinking he's gonna, okay. - Yeah. (laughs) - Like, Hellboy could crush him between his little thingies. Just snap him in too. - Well, if he's trying to stone right hand, yeah. But we quickly meet Ron Perelman. - Yay. - And he looks great. It is a little bit of a jab at the comics, 'cause it's funny, because in all the comics, Hellboy's eyes are yellow. - Oh, well, that's a little much, though. - Well, that's why he says the line. - I hate those comic books. He never gets the eyes right. - We see the crazy makeup and prosthetics, and it looks really good, but weirdly in the credits, they do a title card for Rick Baker, but in reality, Rick Baker said that he wasn't super involved. Like, it was two artists that worked at his studio, but they credited Rick Baker as like a supervisor, or an advisor of sorts. But the two artists that were mainly behind the Hellboy makeup in this movie were Matt Rose and Chad Waters. So I just wanted to give them a shout out, because yeah, it does look really good. And I mean, it's like shocking when you see it at first, but then once Ron starts walking around and being Hellboy, you just kind of forget that it's prosthetics and all that bullshit. It just is what it is. - Well, yeah, I know it took him a couple of hours to put that on. - Oh, sure, yeah. - I think Abe's took 12? - The Fish Man. - The Fish Man, 'cause we also do meet Abe Sapien here. - Played by Doug Jones. Now Doug Jones, he's also a Garamo regular, but he's just an iconic actor as far as physicality and stuff. He's always some weird kind of lanky creature of sorts. You know, he was the creature in the shape of water. He played the Silver Surfer. He was in Pan's Labyrinth. He played Billy in "Hocus Pocus." Love that, love that for Billy. But weirdly, his voice in this movie was dubbed by David Hyde-Pierce, from Fraser. And you can tell, 'cause in the sequel, it's just Doug Jones's voice. But in this first movie, they dubbed his voice with David Hyde-Pierce, but then David Hyde-Pierce was like, "I don't want credit, 'cause this isn't my character." Like Doug Jones did all the work here, so I'll give my voice, but I wanted to go uncredited. So he doesn't have any credits in the movie. - Hey, hey, you know what? It is Doug Jones doing most of the work, so. - Yeah, Doug Jones is cool as fuck. - He is, you know, but we also, of course, we just have our villains who, Rasputin's reborn in the pool of blood. - Fun. And then he has, I wasn't clear. Okay, so the Mecha Nazi guy. - Yes. - That's the same guy from "The Cold Open." - Yes. - 'Cause it's just a robot guy. - Yes. - It kinda looks like the robot guy from "Road One." - Yes. - But the lady, is that the same lady? - Yes. - How is it the same lady? - So. - 'Cause I just saw a blonde Nazi lady, and I'm like, "Oh, it's Ilsa from fucking Indiana Jones." - Yes, her name is Ilsa. - Of course it is. - Or it's Isla. - Whatever who cares fucking Ilsa. - Right before, because. - Nazi lady. - Rasputin right before, you know, he gets sucked into the portal. He is magic, so he grants her everlasting life. - Naturally. - So yes, what is the Bureau of Paranormal Defense? We get Broome telling us what this is. Basically, he goes, "There are things that go bump in the night, and we bump back." - Oh yeah, oh yeah. - Which is a cool line. - Yeah, it's good. It's a good line. - And our first mission is at some random museum, and it turns out, a hell hound, Simeil has been unleashed and is eating people. So, if we send in Hellboy to deal with this monster. And it's pretty fun. It's a monster looks good. It's a fun fight one on one. This is one of the better things about this movie is it does feel quite a few cases to Hellboy. He's very close to dying. - And the fact that the creature, at least in this part, is practical, definitely helps. It makes it look more real, it looks better. Oh, and also, Hellboy establishes himself as a sassy king, where he's like, "I work alone." And then he's always running around. And eventually, him and the fucking monster break out of the museum and start running around through New York City and just making it rock. And the fact that the society is supposed to be in secret is so stupid because on multiple occasions, they're just out and about. And every flip phone back in 2004 in New York City would be up taking pictures of this thing. Whatever. What's weird too, is that there's a whole subplot or whatever, or an inciting incident in the sequel that like the secret society isn't a secret anymore. And it's like, it hasn't really been a secret. There's a comic book about this guy. Like clearly, it's not a secret. - No, it's not. - It's just strange, I don't know. - It is a little strange. But one of my favorite moments from this is, so Semayel, the hellhound, is the hellhound of resurrection. - Ah, yes. - So at one point, as they're fighting in the museum, Hellboy wings him with a bullet and is like, ha, I caught you, motherfucker. Turns around and starts walking out and Abe's on his earpiece going, hey, I have to tell you the rest of the thing. - He's like, oh god, whatever. - He's like, I got him, it's we're fine. No, he's the hellhound of resurrection. And as soon as Abe's champion says it, Frankie goes, oh fuck. And Hellboy repeats the exact same line. - No, no, no, this is what he said. 'Cause he can't say fuck, 'cause this is a PG-13 movie. I wish I also think it's funny because he's like a chain smoker of cigars and he's a big fucking hell demon. But he's like, I can only say crap. That's the worst bad word I could say. I was like, okay, whatever, dude. But what I said was, oh, I don't like that. He turns around and he's like, I don't like that. I was like, oh, okay, me neither. - It was literally, it was so great, it was perfect. So we get, this fight breaks out. It goes through a little festival. - And the FBI guys like, oh, what a, to like a random guy walking by, he's like, oh, what a great joke. Happy Halloween, what great costumes, right? I was like, oh my god, dude, stop it, you're embarrassing. - But they quickly get down into the subway system. And Samil runs through a subway car and Hellboy tries to follow him, but can't make the jump and gets hit with a fire extinguisher by the driver of the subway car. He's like, I'm on your side. Like any true New Yorker, he goes, yeah, right. - And then fucking beats him up. - But he does kill Samil, the demon dog, but it turns out every time he kills him, like a hydra, two more pop up. But we'll get back to that in a second, because now Hellboy has to go visit Liz. - Play by Samil Blair. - Play by Samil Blair. He steals some Bud Light. Can you tell this movie is sponsored by Baby Roof and Bud Light? - Nah. - She is at a minimum security hospital. - Because she's basically Jean Grey. - She has these powers, but she can't always control them. And when she gets mad, she can make things go boom. - She's kind of a mixture of Jean and Rogue. - Sure. - So she suffers from like pyrokinesis. She tells Hellboy like, hey, I'm actually getting better here. And I kind of need you to stay away. - Yeah, if you love me, leave me alone. - Does not sit well. - No, he's very immature with all things. Like even his response to that, he's not like fuck you or anything, but he's just like, yeah, yeah. Well, okay, you go on ahead. I got stuff I gotta do anyway. And he's like, he thinks he's so cool. I'm like, um, sweetie. But then what's his name? Myers, the FBI guy, looks at her and he's, you know, Twitter padded with Samil Blair. And he's like, he goes to Professor Broome and he's like, I could get Fire Girl to come back on our team. That's fine, I just gotta talk to her. And Hellboy's like, bitch, what the fuck? How do you think you're gonna do it? But of course he ends up doing it and bringing her back. - Well, well, it's after Rasputin like causes her to like lose control of her powers again. - Oh, yeah, and set the fucking hospital on fire. - Yeah, so she kind of isn't a bad place when Myers comes and is like, hey, you should come back. - Hey, you wanna kill some Nazis? - Basically, yeah. (laughs) So now we do get also another scene where it turns out, Samil lay the bunch of eggs. We have to go back to the subway. Hellboy gets distracted by the Nazi robot guy, gets led into the tunnel systems. Abe gets almost killed by the hellhound. - I'm a fish man. - Bum bum. - Gameral Datoro and his fish man. Our other suit, let's call him Clay. - Which who gives a shit about that guy in his hair plugs? Fuck him, I don't care. He dies. - Oh, poor Clay. - Not really, I don't care about him. - No, who cares? You could've taken him out of the movie and just had maybe, I don't know, a scene about Red, you know, have him have a conversation with his father. I feel like they didn't have a conversation the whole movie, just the two of them. - No. - You know, seeing as how it's like probably one of the most important relationships in the movie, that would've been nice. - Yeah, they haven't grown it or, you know, have a scene where all Liz, Abe, and Hellboy are all in the same scene together at one point. - Oh my God, imagine that. - While Clay is getting killed by the Nazi robot guy, Hellboy is fighting another demon, Hellhound. - Ah, yes, and then they're in the subway? - Yes, they are deep in the subway again. And there's just so happens to be a little box of kittens in the subway, that Hellboy has to save. So he's got a box of kittens under one arm and then with the other arm, he's killing the creature guy. And in my head, I'm just like, hmm, am I more attracted? Am I less attracted? Am I, what do I do here? I don't know, he's saving all the pretty little kitties, but he's also, like, you know, a demon, hmm, I don't know, which is weird, 'cause they also do that in the sequel, but it's like an actual baby. But both the scenes end very differently. In the kitty cat scene, the lady whose cats, they were like, oh, thank you. And then when he saves a baby in the sequel, everyone's horrified, like, what did you do to that baby? Why'd you steal the baby? And it's like, what the fuck? Do we hate him or are we cool with this guy? I don't know, like, we're not, I don't understand. Half-hell demon, it's what it is. People are weird. So they take the Nazi robot guy back to the bureau and Broome starts working on him. - Yes, and the FBI guy who's supposed to be pure apart and a good influence on Hellboy, he really spends no time with Hellboy at all and just goes and talks to Liz and gets her to come back to the bureau. And she immediately leaves Hellboy to go out with him, the FBI guy for coffee, which incites an entirely ridiculous subplot where they're going out for coffee and just talking. She's clearly not into him like that. They're clearly just talking. The FBI guy wants to fuck her. She's not down for it. She's clearly in love with Hellboy. And Hellboy, meanwhile, is perched atop many a roof in New York City, following them and watching them. And I was, it felt like this love triangle came out of absolutely nowhere. And it just, like, the whole plot just stopped for a second and we're like, oh, we're gonna have a love triangle now. And it was so weird. - It is a bit weird. - Why are we doing this? - I think it was mainly to get Hellboy out of the bureau. - Right. So that the Nazi robot guy can kill Broom. - Yes. - Which was actually a decent scene. If I knew Broom better and cared more about his relationship with Hellboy, like, you know, if they had a scene together, maybe I would care a little more. But the scene was good. He listens to like a lot of old fashioned, like, classical-y music. So Broom was listening to the song "We'll Meet Again" and the Nazi robot comes down the stairs and slits his fucking throat. - Yep. - And Broom's dead. - Yep. And Rasputin leaves a clue so Hellboy will follow him. - I thought that the aftermath of Broom's death is gonna be a little more hefty. It truly was not. There was really no aftermath at all. There was like a line that Liz said, like, oh, Hellboy, you know, he hasn't spoken to anyone in three days. But that was it. Like, there's even like when Hellboy finds the body. - There's a funeral in the rain. - Yeah, well, he's standing with Broom's rose of rain in the rain. - Oh my God, wow. But okay, when he finds his dead body, he just like falls to his knees and like doesn't say anything. And then they cut. It's the funeral cut. And then Liz said, oh, he hasn't talked to anyone in three days. And then the next scene is her walking into a room and he immediately starts talking to her. So it's just like, oh, okay. So I guess, I guess we're over this. I guess we're done with the father's death, cool. - So I do wanna ask you this 'cause so I heard a couple podcasts talk about Hellboy and Liz's kind of relationship. And they kind of find it a little creepy. - How so? - So Hellboy's 60. - Well, I thought he's in real time 60, but like-- - Yes, he's-- - Maturity-wise, he's 20. - Right, in his 20s. - So, but when he meets her for the first time hypothetically, she's like eight or nine. - Uh-huh. - And they kind of, she grows up with Hellboy. - I mean, okay, I didn't think of it that way simply because, I mean, they have bigger problems in their age difference, I think, you know. She is who man and he is demon. But I don't think I ever thought about the age difference simply because of the maturity level. And he's clearly not a six-year-old man. - Well, and also he's a demon, it's not the same. - Right, they age different, like he ages differently. They say that at the beginning of the movie. The heat doesn't age like they do. So, yeah, and he clearly has the maturity of someone like in their 20s, or if not teens. So, I mean, I don't, you know, I didn't see that as strange. I guess, like technically, yeah, there's some gray area there, for sure. - And he's a little obsessive, just a little. - Sure, but that's just the immaturity thing. And like, also, you have to take into account that he is a demon in a human world. And he obviously met this woman that is different than any other human girl that he knows, and that understands him in a way that nobody else really would because of her differences. So, I can understand that. I mean, I just, I found the level of immaturity in the love triangle stuff to be a little silly. But ultimately, when we get to the scene with him and Liz, where he basically says, like, I know Myers is like a normal guy and you could feel normal with him. And he says, like, if I could do something about this, any motion to his face, I would, but I can't. I just want you to know, like, I would never give up on you. And all this stuff, it's a really good scene. It's probably, I think it's the best scene in the movie. At least one of the best scenes. But it took us way too long to get there. Yeah, to an extent, it didn't take a while to get here. Because again, I think there's a lot to focus on with the monsters and the creations and again, the mystical, magical bullshit. But, I mean, you know, it's funny because in the sequel, like, okay, she's just a lady. Like, she's a lady that can make foyer, but she's a lady. So like, how are you, how, how do you fuck? How fucking happened? How babies happen? Well, with crazy, healthy men, the size of Chrysler Building and Tiny Lady. Well, the other thing is he's, he's fireproof. He's a dick made of stone. I know his hands made of stone. No, he's, he's fireproof. No, his dick's not made of stone. We don't know that. We didn't see it. Well, no, I didn't personally pull that rock power with death. That's what I'm saying. We don't know. What, only some of Blair would know. Enron Perlman. But they have to go to Moscow. To find, to find Rasputin and when we get to Moscow, Hellboy revives a corpse. So yeah, that was so, I didn't understand why we did that either. Yeah, he needed directions to find Rasputin this too. Like, it was funny because he had like a dismembered head talking to him and saying we're shit in Russian. And like, that was funny. But then that, that was over very quickly. Like, at one point, like he gets swiped by something and knocked out of the movie. And I'm like, OK, well, that was fun for five minutes and now it's over. OK. Yeah, basically, but we get him fighting Nazi robot guy. And he eventually kills the Nazi robot guy by crushing him under a giant gear. That's all for you. Binette. I think the action, when it is here, like him fighting Semiel, the hellhound is fun. This short fight with the Nazi robot guy is also fun. And then we kind of get into the whole, we have to like CGI this because we want him fighting 20 hellhounds. Oh, yeah. It wasn't a bad scene or anything, but it was just glaringly obvious, of course, that it was CGI. That was probably the most like Uncanny Valley scene in the movie, though, which in the early 2000s movie, action movie, especially like it's not that bad, but they couldn't do what they wanted to do without computer generated. Yeah. So I mean, it makes sense. So in the scene, as help was getting overwhelmed by the masses of hellhounds, Liz turns to Myers and goes, hit me. Oh, that was-- yeah, that was fucked. Because she-- this guy is like-- I don't know what we were trying to do with him either, because he is also incredibly immature, because he obviously is a thing for Liz, but when he realizes that she clearly loves Hellboy, he asks her about it in the middle of all this bullshit. And she literally says to him, is this the time to really talk about this, whatever love triangle is going on here that has been forced upon me? And he's like, well, yeah. And she's like, ah, red or white. All guys are the same. I'm like, I did, because fuck these fucking guys, like, there are Nazis running around and Hellhounds, and we're talking about this shit so stupid. But yeah, like, Hellboy is clearly in trouble, like, serious trouble, and he's just going to run. And I'm like, who the fuck is this guy? And then Liz, she's like, hit me, because she knows it'll trigger her anger, which will trigger her firepower, and she just wants to lay waves to the fucking place. So he smacks her, which I was like, you can't even fucking do that right. Punch her in the fucking face. I mean, you know I would never say for a male character to punch a girl character in the face. But like, this bitch could take it, and she wants you to make her mad. So like, punch her. But yeah, he slaps her, and then she gets pissed and lays waste. And then that's when the Nazi people show up. - Yeah, so the Nazis just come capture everybody. And Rasputin goes, hey, Hellboy, if you join my side, I'll leave Liz alone. And Hellboy goes, fuck you. - This is actually a really good climax, like, you felt things here, and that was good. I wish there was more of this at the movie. - So Rasputin takes Liz's soul. - Yes. - And like absorbs it into his body. - And he's pissed, Hellboy. He's screaming and going crazy. And the bad guy's like, if you go to the dockside. - And release the chaos God. - Yeah, 'cause you're the only one that could do it, 'cause you lived in the portal, or the other side of it, you know, in Hell or whatever. - Your Hell? - You can open the door with your fucking stone hand. - Exactly, your hand is the key. - So he goes to do it, and he's really emotional, and like, tormented about it. But he eventually decides he's gonna go do it. And the way that they have him turn it around is, like, I don't know, maybe because there has been an emotional lacking throughout the movie. So the way they tried to surge up the emotionality in this last little bit was kind of silly. They literally had the FBI guy just be like, "Remember who you are, Simba!" Like, he's just, and he grabs, he grabs Brooms Rosary, which had fallen on the ground, and he throws it, and why? They hadn't do, like, the flimsiest little pussy throw of this Rosary to fucking Hellboy, and he grabs it, and it burns his hand. And then he has, like, a moment of realization, like, "Oh my God, I can't do this." So he basically, like, flips the monopoly board over, and he's like, "Fuck this, I'm out." He grabs Liz, he spashes the door, right? He just fucks up fucking door to Hell. - Well, he says, "Fuck the door." He takes, 'cause his horns grew back when he tries to join the dark stuff. - Oh, yeah, he rips off his horns. That was pretty dope. - So he rips off his horns and stabs Rasputin in the stomach. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So Rasputin, when he was reborn, was reborn with some of the Chaos God in him, because, you know. - Mystical, magical bullshit. - Exactly. So he unleashes the part of the Chaos God. Hellboy takes Liz and Myers and goes, "Hey." - You just, you guys stay here. I'll go take care of that. - You guys stay here. How big could it be? And then the tentacle wraps around him and drags him off. - He killed it way too easily, though. I feel like he was gone for two seconds, and then Hellboy came back. - Yeah, well, he literally-- - He sounds like, "All right." - He brought the grenades, got swallowed, and blew it up from the inside. - Yeah, it was a little too easy, but whatever. - It worked. - We're at the climax. But the best part about it is Hellboy wins. He goes back to Liz, and we think she's dead, but eventually her soul comes back to her body. She wakes up, and they have this really close hug, and I was like, "Oh, 'cause I like a big, strong man "that can protect me and encase me "in a lovely, protective hug, Scotty." So I got a little like, "Ooh, this is nice." And then they get together, and they start making out, and she flames out, and they're fucking making out, and fucking poor FBI guys. They're just looking stupid as fuck. Just watching them make out, and he's like, "Well, I'm clearly out of my league here. "She's a fire lady, and he's a demon, "and I'm just a guy, and I'm just Ken." (laughs) - And I'm not fireproof. - Hell nah. And apparently in the sequel, 'cause Scotty did say that a sad FBI guy, pathetic audience surrogate guy who wanted to get the fire lady, isn't in the sequel, and I was curious what they would say in the sequel, why he wasn't in it. They said that Hellboy had him transferred to Antarctica. (laughs) - It's one of those things like, you're dating hypothetically a mutant. - Yeah, sure, sure. - Yeah, it would be very difficult to get over the fact that at any point, she could lose her temper, or her control, and just light everything on fire. - Yeah, just the sheer fuckery of Myers's rejection is really funny, but I do like Red and Liz. I just wish that there was, I wish there was more of them, 'cause I did like them together. It just seemed like mostly surface level, like you're a freak, I'm a freak, so let's get our freak on. And like, that's cool. I just wish there was like a little more jush, a little more meat to that, a little more meat to the father-son relationship, you know, just a little more emotional pull to keep us invested. - But yeah, that's Hellboy. - How do you feel after watching this again, after a while? - Again, I still enjoy most of it. I have a good time with it. Is it a little bit of a mess? Yeah, it's a little bit of a mess, but it's a fun mess. - I do agree, it's a fun mess. - Ron Pearlman's great. Would I have loved to see Gail Mul de Toro do this movie now? - Mm-hmm. - I have a feeling it would be a much different movie because of the gram. - I agree, I think because if you look at the movies, he's done like more recently, which I think both of us are a little more familiar with. It's like, I've seen Shape of Water, we've seen Nightmare Alley, even though it's not his best movie, but also like Pinocchio. Like I think he, obviously he's very stylized regardless, but I think he's done a lot to improve his-- - Storytelling. - Storytelling and character driven stuff too. Like, Shape of Water's a great example of that, as well as Pinocchio. So I think definitely he's improved there, and I think, 'cause obviously now looking back, you know, after 20 years of a lot of superhero movies, I think there's obviously a formula that works, to a certain extent, with superhero movies. I think that he could take that formula and twist it in his way to make it still feel like a Guillermo del Toro movie, but also give us that balance that I feel like was lacking here. - Well yeah, I think Marvel even tried to do this a little bit. They had that short come out, I think last year or the year before-- - Oh, the werewolf thing. - The werewolf one. - I never watched that. - It was kind of, it felt like it was trying to be a del Toro thing. And I thought it was good. I think del Toro would be amazing if he did this again. - Yeah, I think now is, I mean, now would be a cool time to do it, because people are sick of the more formulaic version of the superhero movie. That's why I think a lot of people responded well to Deadpool, Wolverine. I mean, yes, there are obvious tropes there, but also it's playing with them, and in that special Deadpool way, and Deadpool in general is a sarcastic fucker, so I feel like Hellboy would fit very well in that realm. - Yeah, the only issue is, again, as much as I love Ron Perlman, and I do love him, I think he's aged out of the character. - Yeah, I think he's done. I mean, we could potentially do something where he is like passing the torch to his son or something. - It could be, but-- - Or they could do something where they reboot Hellboy with GDT, and like, he plays broom. - That would be interesting, I could do that. - I know people, I feel like there was talk forever about them doing something like that with Back to the Future, where like Michael J. Fox would play Doc, and they'd have someone else play Marty when I knock on wood right now, because I don't want that to happen. If they ever remade Back to the Future, it would be sacrilege, and I die, but you know what I'm saying? I feel like, if they did something like that, though, where he played broom, and then they geded, he brought somebody else in, that'd be fun. - Or even if he was like the head of the agency, 'cause I could see him being the hard-nosed, like, it's my way or the highway. I can close this shit down. - Sure, you gotta let him be the badass that he's so good at being. - There's a reason they wanna do this again. There's a reason-- - Yeah, but I don't think, now that they've bombed twice with Hellboy, I don't think any studio's gonna touch it. - At least not. - So, we would have to have GDT do like a Francis Ford Coppola, Megalopolis last hurrah, and make Hellboy three. - But again, Hellboy has now kind of become popular in the culture again. That's why we wanna see this done right. We got these two movies, which are fun movies. Neither of them are perfect, but they're fun. Hellboy showed up in a bunch of games. I think he was in recently the Injustice games. - Uh-huh. - That's more of the comic actor version of Hellboy. But like, people want this. - I think if somebody big buys Dark Horse comics and gets, like, if the rights change hands, and like, it's a big studio, maybe they'll try it, but I think it's bombed now twice in the modern, you know, post yesterday, or according to Scott. So I don't know. I don't know if they'll even wanna touch it. I think Garmel would, but it would just have to be like the timing. And then Ron Perlman, if he doesn't play Hellboy, I could see him playing Broom, and maybe even being like an executive producer, just to be like, I wanna get this up because I care about this character. I could see him wanting to do that. - It'd be interesting. Again, it's just tough, because if Del Toro did come back to it, as much as Perlman's 20 years older, there's part of me, like in my head, I know, it's like, he's older. He might've aged out of the character, but then part of me is like, but do I want anybody else to really do Del Toro's version of this character other than Ron Perlman? - Right, I mean, despite the issues with both of the movies, I think there was, and is a lot of potential with that pairing of Perlman and Del Toro in that Hellboy universe. Like, it would be cool to see what they would do with it now, but it might just be a lightning and a bottle situation where like, it was just the perfect marriage and the perfect time, and the time maybe has passed now, which is kind of a bummer. - Yeah, but Frankie, whether you rate the original 2004 Hellboy. - So I was stuck between a three and a three and a half. Realistically, I would probably give this smack in the middle of 3.25, but because I really do like the character, I liked Ron Perlman in the role, I liked the good things outweighed the bad things for me. So I was more willing to go up rather than down, and I ultimately settled on a 3.5 out of five stars on Letterbox. - So I had this a four before the movie, and I still really like it, but I kind of now see some of the flaws in it. So I knocked it down to a three and a half. I think it's more like a 3.75, but the flaws are there, and I can see them now being years removed from the movie. Does that mean I think it's bad? No, not at all. Could I watch this tomorrow? Yeah, I could watch this again tomorrow. - I could watch it again tomorrow. - I enjoy Ron Perlman, I enjoy the world, I enjoy Yomodotoro's whole deal. Hellboy's fun, and for a fun spooky movie, you could do a lot worse. - True, I did like kind of the thesis of the movie, which was set by Abe Sapien at one point. If there's trouble, all us freaks have is each other, which I think is a really solid thesis for the movie, and just a good premise for a spookier superhero movie, 'cause we're all a bunch of freaks at the end of the day. And we have a lot to stick together. - Do we do? - So that was Hellboy. It was fun, I had a good time. - Yep. - Next week, I'm going to be showing Scott a spooky movie. I'm excited. - That should be interesting. - But until then, this has been Shoot The Flick. I'm Frankie Sparks. - And I'm Scott Eisenberg. - Make sure you check us out on Instagram and Twitter, and check out all of our episodes on iTunes, Spotify. And I heart radio and pretty much anywhere else. You can find a podcast and make sure you come back next week for our iconic cinematic movie adventure. ♪ Like a badder than hell, I'll be gone ♪ ♪ When the money comes ♪ ♪ Oh, when the night is over ♪ ♪ Like a badder than hell, I'll be gone ♪ [BLANK_AUDIO]
This week for Spooky season we dive into the 2000s Hellboy! What did we think of Guillermo del Toro's superhero movie? Will it be a blast or should we send it back to the pits of hell? Tune in to find out as we SHOOT THE FLICK!!!