I’m like really trying hard to think of something to say about the first trailer for the upcoming Hellboy film but, to be honest, it just kinda seems like almost every other super hero trailer that I’ve seen recently. You’ve got some one liners. You’ve got some glowering extras. You’ve got some hints of extreme violence. You’ve got a cheesy song playing in the background for some reason. (Mony Mony? Really?) It’s like they took the trailers for Deadpool and Guardians of the Galaxy and they just forced Hellboy into them.
That said, I liked both Deadpool and Guardians of the Galaxy…..
Anyway, Hellboy will be released on April 12th, which is often not a great sign when it comes to films like this. (An April release generally means that the studios is hoping to make a quick buck before the summer blockbusters come along.) On the plus side, Neil Marshall’s usually a pretty good director. So, we’ll see what happens!
The Hellboy reboot has been a tad polarizing with fans of the films pretty much wanting the film to fail because it’s not Guillermo Del Toro and Ron Perlman doing Hellboy 3. Then there are fans of the source material who have faith that this reboot will skew more towards the horror origins that it’s creator had in mind when he created Hellboy and the BPRD.
In fact, the reboot will take ideas from two of the character’s later trip down horror lane with the story arcs from Hellboy: The Wild Hunt and Hellboy: The Storm and The Fury.
While news came down that the release of the Neil Marshall-helmed Hellboy reboot has been pushed up by several months, there’s at least some very good news relating to the BPRD’s number agent.
A new poster for the film has been released courtesy of Entertainment Weekly and we see David Harbour in full Hellboy make-up with unbroken horns, flaming sword and the Right Hand of Doom very much present. This Hellboy also seem to be a bit more worn and scarred from previous fights with a much more demonic visage than the Guillermo Del Toro/Ron Perlman incarnation.
The film won’t be out in the theaters until April 12, 2019, but this cast and crew and this poster is just helping drive my interest in this reboot towards hype level.
Guillermo Del Toro will forever be one of the heroes of comic book fans everywhere due to his bringing Mike Mignola’s Hellboy comic book franchise from the printed page to the silver screen. He first brought the Big Red Guy with the 2004 film adaptation of the same name. The film was a modest success and brought the titular character to a whole new group of fans. In 2008, Del Toro came out with the bigger and more epic sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army. What some fans of the character sometimes forget or didn’t even realize was that in-between these two films were two direct-to-dvd releases of the animated variety. The first to come out was Hellboy: Sword of Storms in 2006. While I enjoyed that animated film it would be the follow-up dvd release, Hellboy: Blood and Iron which truly captured the essence of the comic books even moreso than the two live-action films.
Hellboy: Blood and Iron would combine parallel storylines about Hellboy and his surrogate father’s, Trevor Bruttenholm, encounter with one Erzsebet Ondrushko also known in occult circles as Elizabeth Bathory the Blood Countess. According to the film, Erzsebet would bathe in the blood of innocent, young girls. The film also makes Erzsebet a follower and disciple of the Mediterranean goddess of witchcraft and sorcery, Hecate.
One storyline would play out in reverse chronological order and take place in 1939 as a much younger Trevor Bruttenholm travels to Eastern Europe to investigate a series of murders that locals have attributed to the return of the Blood Countess. The other storyline moves to the present as Hellboy and his teammates from the B.P.R.D. (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) investigate the supposed hauntings of the estate of a wealthy businessman. This would be an estate that would be the center piece of a sort of haunted amusement park with the Blood Countess and the legends surrounding her as the main attraction.
Hellboy: Blood and Iron does a great job of mixing action, horror and the occult without one or the other overshadowing the rest. The film takes some of it’s ideas from Mike Mignola’s (creator of the Hellboy franchise) Hellboy graphic novel, Wake the Devil, and screenwriter Kevin Hopps does a good job of taking those ideas and creating something new yet similar as well. The film also benefited from the return of the cast of the live-action Hellboy films to voice their respective characters in this animated film. There’s Ron Perlman in his gruff and sardonic best as the title character. Selma Blair returns to voice Hellboy’s closest friend in the redheaded pyrokine Liz Sherman with Doug Jones and John Hurt rounding it out as Abe Sapien and Trevor Bruttenholm.
The animation is not the highest level but for a direct-to-dvd affair it more than holds up and really captures the look and feel of the comic books it was based on. Yet, while an animated film this one wouldn’t be appropriate for little kids to watch. For a “cartoon” it’s quite violent with themes of witchcraft, vampirism and blood sacrifice prevalent from beginning to end. It’s actually quite scary in certain sections especially whenever the resurrected Erzsebet appeared. I don’t think most animated films ever involved a sequence of a tub full of fresh, hot blood waiting to be used as bathwater.
For those willing to learn more and understand the appeal of the Hellboy comic books to legions of fans this animated film was a good example. Hellboy: Blood and Iron was great from beginning to end especially how it interwove not just the vampiric and pagan legends surrounding Erzebet Ondrushko, but also little tidbits of information and character development which added to the backstory of not just Hellboy but those closest to him. Plus, this animated film had two character’s whose names were variants of the name Lisa.
I missed out on the initial release for 100 Bullets, but I’ve since rectified that problem.
Brian Azzarrello’s 100 Bullets continues the long line of excellent mature comic titles from DC Comic’s Vertigo line. Azzarrello’s hardboiled, crime-thriller noir series brings to mind classic detective-noir works by Hammett, Spillane and Chandler. It’s a more complex continuation of the hyper-noir series Frank Miller began with his Sin City series. I’ve heard people say that this series was better than Sin City and to some respect it was. The stories in each issue contained in this first volume (issues 1 through 5) were abit more complex in nature and execution than Miller’s more simple noir tales. The five stories in this collected volume also laid the basic groundwork for what’ll turn out to be one long-running series lasting exactly 100-issues. Where Sin City‘s simplicity in its storytelling and artwork lay its strength, it’s in the complexities in the tales and the detailed, but economical artwork that 100 Bullets shined through.
In First Shot, Last Call we’re introduced to the gamemaster of the tale: Agent Graves. Looking like an ever-present government agent who has seen all that life has thrown at him and ready for more, Agent Graves picks a recently paroled Latino lass by the name of Dizzy Cordova with a proposition. He offers Dizzy an attache case with a gun and 100 bullets that’re untraceable and definite proof that certain individuals caused her heartache and grief that has ruined her life. He only offers her the attache case, its content and the proof within. The choice is Dizzy’s to make on what she should do with what’s offered her. This set-up and premise is the beauty of 100 Bullets. The story’s basically a morality tale of choices offered to the characters. Will they use the offer to exact vengeance and get away with it scott-free, or will they refuse the offer and live on with their life. The choice of revenge really doesn’t bring back lost time and loved ones and only feeds the need for retribution. Agent Graves doesn’t really force Dizzy’s hand, but a supporting character knowledgable of the offer does — for his own agenda not yet known — prods, pushes and guides her to picking the more primal choice. Dizzy’s choice in the end was both understandable and in the end inevitable.
The second story arc deals with Lee Dolan who also has had his life turned upside-down by people unknown to him. His life and family taken away by the stink of a child pornography accusation in the past. Agent Graves makes him the same offer of the attache case and its untraceable 100 bullets. Dolan’s reaction to this offer is different from that of Dizzy’s, but in the end his ultimate choice doesn’t give him the same resolution and new life path that Dizzy made. It’s a tribute to Azzarrello’s great writing that the decision both Dizzy Cordova and Lee Dolan made were understandable when taken into context of their personalities and yearning to fix the problem that led them to their current state in their lives.
To complement Azzarrello’s words perfectly were Eduardo Risso’s artwork. It would be a misnomer to say that Risso’s art style was minimalist like those of Frank Miller’s woodcut-engraving style for Sin City or Mike Mignola’s chiasroscuro-style for his Hellboy series. There’s a sense of the cinematic in Risso’s work. The scenes were always drawn with a mind for action even when it’s just people standing around. Risso has quite the filmmaker’s eye in how he’s drawn 100 Bullets which just adds to its noirish feel. The characters and environment were drawn not to scale and real-world proportion, but just enough not to look cartoonish. I would agree that there’s an abundance for cleavage on the women drawn, but Risso doesn’t do it gratuitously. Instead he uses this detail to showcase the sexuality of the strong female characters. It paints the female characters like Dizzy Cordova and Megan Dietrich with a sense of both strength and sensuality without pandering to the teenage boy demographic. Plus, he gives these ladies their own personality and character with how he draws them. Dizzy truly has the Latina sensual curves while Megan has the icy-cold Aryan beauty that serves her well.
100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call was a great discovery and a wonderful beginning to a very mature, intelligent and hardhitting comic series. Congratulations must got to its creator Brian Azzarrello for writing such great characters and memorable stories. I can’t forget the work of his artist and partner-in-crime, Eduardo Risso. Risso’s artwork has stamped themselves in my mind as the only way to see 100 Bullets in. Both Azzarrello and Risso complement each other well and their continued collaboration right up to the end of the series helped make this series one of the best of the past decade.
Sad news for Tolkien fans worldwide as Guillermo Del Toro has announced that he will be leaving the planned two-part film project to adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic novel, The Hobbit. As his announcement on TheOneRing.Net explains the many delays to the start of the project has made his role as director to the two films untenable. He had signed up to spend three years in New Zealand to do the films and has even moved his family to have them closer to him during the process, but the constant delays to getting an official start date would mean he would need to spend double the time he had originally signed up for.
These delays have made him put on the backburner his own film projects which seem very close and dear to him. He still has to finish off his Spanish Civil War Trilogy (The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth being the first two). There’s also his wish to do a third Hellboy film (the second film setting up what could be an epic closing to the franchise). Then there’s his dream project to bring to the big-screen a film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s novella, At the Mountains of Madness.
With Del Toro now gone as headliner for the two Hobbit films there’s surely going to be new rumors about who shall replace him. There was major scuttlebutt that Sam Raimi was in the running in the beginning before Del Toro signed on. I wouldn’t be surprised if Raimi’s name came up once again. He definitely has free time now that he’s off the Spider-Man franchise. Will Jackson do another “out of left field” decision and tap Blomkamp to take over for Del Toro. I think that’s a brave move if it happens, but also one that could backfire and stunt Blomkamp’s career. He’s already been part of plans to adapt a major franchise only to have it taken away from him.
In the end, it looks like The Hobbit may just end up not being made or, at the very least, not make a 2012 release date many insiders have set it two-part film for.
Through the Shattered Lens 