Film @ The Digital Fix. People are either into comics or they're not. For those who are they may well have heard about "Hellboy" and for those who aren't, well that would be understandable. Whether you love comics or not there's just no escaping some. Even if some of us may never have read Spiderman, Superman, X- Men, Fantastic Four and so on the amount of worldwide attention they receive makes them impossible to ignore. Everybody knows who Batman and Superman are regardless and I've read very few comics from selected series. Hellboy: Director's Cut is a three-disc version of the film that adds 13 minutes of footage that Del Toro calls. Hellboy starts in 1944 in war-torn. This is the Director’s Cut of Hellboy. Hellboy is based on the Dark Horse Comic by Mike Mignola. During World War II, young Professor Bruttenholm and a group of U.S. Search for 'Hellboy' on Amazon.com. Connect with IMDb. Share this Rating. Title: Hellboy (2004) 6.8 /10. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML. Comparison between the Unrated Director's Cut and the theatrical cut (PG-13). For the DC the Unrated RC1 DVD by Columbia was on hand. The theatrical cut was. Amazon.co.uk - Buy Hellboy (Director's Cut) at a low price; free delivery on qualified orders. See reviews & details on a wide selection of Blu-ray & DVDs, both new. Watch us review the director cut of the beloved sci-fi horror film, Hellboy (2004.). Hellboy Blu-ray (Director's Cut) (2004): Starring Ron Perlman, John Hurt and Selma Blair. Born in the flames of hell and brought to Earth as an infant to perpetrate. Amazon.com: Hellboy (Director's Cut): John Hurt, Jeffrey Tambor, Karel Roden, Selma Blair, Ron Perlman, Guillermo Del Toro, Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Mike. Hellboy: Director's Cut. In DVD Review. For those who are they may well have heard about 'Hellboy' and for those who aren't, well that would be understandable. Amazon.com: Hellboy (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray]: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Karel Roden, Rupert Evans, John Hurt, Guillermo Del Toro: Movies & TV. When Hellboy was announced I had no idea what it was, sure I've enjoyed a couple of the recent batches of comic- book adaptations, namely X- Men but this film was something I wasn't quite ready for. For those in the know Hellboy was an eagerly awaited film and like any other adaptation expectations were high. Perhaps it is the lack of Hellboy's world- wide popularity that meant it made little impact at the box- office after a strong opening. It did well enough to secure a sequel but its success was likely down to audience's thirst for big budget actioners. When it opened the film scored much praise and the reason for this is that at heart Hellboy is a very human film. Creator, Mike Mignola has done very well over the years, his creation has only been in circulation for ten of those and already it has become a huge franchise, no doubt spurred on quicker by the advance of technology that allows such creations to be carried over to the big screen. The craze for these movies is bigger than ever and over the course of the next few years we can expect bigger and more ambitious films such as Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider and Hellboy 2. The story kicks off in 1. Rasputin and his Nazi cult are in the midst of doing something really naughty - summoning the beasts of hell and all that jazz. Their attempt is soon spoiled when a small army unit infiltrates their base and ends proceedings, forcing the gate to close and the bad guys to run away. Heading up the group is Professor Bruttenholm who is now concerned that the gate had been left open for too long and something may have come through it. Indeed it has - he soon discovers a young, red, monkey- like boy with a large hand and promptly the group names him "Hellboy". The magic of cinema whisks us to 2. Buttonhole (John Hurt) runs a government funded organisation under the name of "The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence". Their duty is to carry out various missions and see that the evil in the world is destroyed. Thankfully they have the best of the best working for them - Hellboy (Ron Perlman), aided by Abe Sapien (Doug Jones). Hellboy is often hard work for his "father" as he regularly disobeys orders and chases after Liz (Selma Blair) who frequently leaves the Bureau on account of her instability. The time has now come for Hellboy to get a new partner - enter John Myers (Rupert Evans), a young FBI agent who has been personally selected by Bruttenholm to look after Hellboy and see that he stays out of trouble, of course that is easier said than done. Soon after meeting, Hellboy and Myers are called out to seek and terminate a creature known as Sammael - a being born from darkness, summoned by Rasputin (Karel Roden) who has returned with a clock- work sandman (Ladislav Beran) that happens to be a dab hand with knives.. Hey, that's comics for you. While Hellboy's premise might not signify the most original or engaging story ever told it is a story that has been expertly crafted from the original materials, by a true fan of the comic series. Guillermo del Toro has long been an avid Hellboy reader so who better to helm the big budget adaptation than he? I saw Hellboy earlier this year when it made its R1 debut and after seeing it I purchased the collections - Seeds of Destruction, Wake the Devil, The Chained Coffin and Others, The Right Hand of Doom and The Conqueror Worm. It was after reading these that I appreciated the film even more and understood why the fans had been going crazy over the silver screen incarnation. To put it simply Hellboy is a fantastic adaptation, one that is faithful in almost every sense with the exception of some changes being made - that of John Myer's introduction (seen as a way to allow the audience to have a recognisable figure) and the extreme fleshing out of Liz Sherman, who has a very minor role in the novels. Naturally by adding something that was never there in the first place, worry would automatically set in and with del Toro placing a love interest that winds up playing out as a triangle he takes a bit of a risk. However he does manage to steer clear from ever allowing it to become too schmaltzy and at the same time he draws a good line between Myers and Hellboy, with each character having enough to play off each other and provide a nice human touch, with Hellboy coming across as much of a human as anyone else in the film. Although he's big and red and files his horns to "fit in" he thinks of himself as a regular guy and when we have him interact with fellow humans we can also see how true this is in essence. I think the most striking aspect of the feature is seeing Hellboy on screen and realising just how perfect Ron Perlman looks. It is as if he was born to play this part. Even if you look at the comic pages you can see his face and stature and you just know that it is right. Hellboy has many qualities that all good heroes should have but mainly a good sense of humour and Ron delivers his lines with great enthusiasm. Only two actors in comic book movies have impressed me this much - Perlman being one and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine being the other. As impressive as Hellboy is I have to say in terms of design that Abe Sapien is one of the most beautiful creations I've seen. When comparing him to his comic counterpart he comes through so much more elegantly on screen, his movements are poetry and his demeanour charming. If I had any complaints it would be that he isn't used as much in the film and just disappears for the final act. The look of the film is typically del Toro; it echoes several of his past films but stays true to Mignola's stylish comic faзade. The film is drowned in yellows, greens and blues and carries the tone and feel of the comic books. The scale is often impressive and location wise del Toro has tried to cram in as much as possible, taking us from dark alleyways to snow covered terrain and almost into hell itself. It helps that computers can create just about anything these days and when merged with the various sets the outcome is almost perfect. I say almost because there are obvious CGI niggles but you can't expect any film to look perfect when we're looking at material like this. It is quite easy to overlook a few flaws because in all the film never fails to entertain, the look is impressive, the action is fast and at times innovative and it’s another step up for comic book movies. As much fun as Hellboy is I do have some reservations. First of all the film is a little too long, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as there's plenty to enjoy but come the final twenty minutes or so it feels a little too forced. Just when you think things have come to an end del Toro pushes it further for its big finale, which in the end actually feels anti- climactic and with several characters pushed into the background at this point it just feels rather tacked on. There were some things I still wanted to be explained, such as the fate of Hellboy's friend, Agent Clay (Corey Johnson) for example - his status is mentioned but unconfirmed. Secondly I didn't think Rasputin was a very interesting figure. I find that his character is the weakest in the film and he is neither menacing nor conniving enough to be a decent bad guy, that honour goes to Karl Ruprect Kroenen - the creepy, bug- eyed self abuser and S& M fetishist who steals a few scenes in his own, quirky way. There is very little to dislike about Hellboy. In the end it is hugely enjoyable, wonderfully cast and directed with such passion that it is one of the biggest surprises of 2. For me this has come out of obscurity and won me over as a fan. I can't say that about many superhero films because I can rarely go back and watch them once or twice at the most but I can see myself visiting this title again in the future. For those who have yet to see the film or read the comics I can say that it isn't essential to read them in order to enjoy the film but if you want to appreciate Hellboy's world just a little bit more then there's no harm in checking a few out. Seeing as this review is primarily for the "Director's Cut" I should address the changes made to this addition. Approximately 1. 3- minutes of unseen footage has been restored to the film, this footage was originally rumoured to contain more violence to give the film a darker edge but this isn't the case. Instead del Toro has put in some slight alterations to scenes containing dialogue that fleshes out some characters a little and improves the flow. In all honesty I can't say that the added scenes make a huge amount of difference, they are quite difficult to even single out from the theatrical cut. Where Lord of the Rings greatly benefited from obvious inclusions Hellboy doesn't. The new footage is nice but doesn't make up any interesting new scenes; it just builds upon them but to a lesser extent. Maybe others will disagree with me but I was personally hoping for more. The DVDColumbia Pictures have done a great job in presenting Hellboy for this new release. This 3- disc set comes in an attractive, card slip- case that houses each disc in their own "thinpak" style case. These make for compact storage which is always great for DVD. As an extra bonus the set includes an exclusive booklet designed by Mike Mignola called "An excerpt from the diary of Grigori Rasputin". This is more of a gimmick than anything else, full of mumble jumble nonsense and pictures of frogs but it’s a nice looking booklet and a strange gift indeed.
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