I) 4‘”. 3
this Ron Perlman'.’ ('an't we get a name to play llellboy‘.’ And what's with the sayyn oil horns and tail and big iron hand'.’ Can‘t Hellboy be human and. y'knou'. occasionally transform into a monster'.’ Like Bruce Banner and the Hulk.
Del Toro weathered interference from the suits. \yho knoyy a lot about money and nothing about creatiyity. stuck to his guns and maintained his and .\lignola‘s Vision.
The results speak for themselves. Hell/my the moyie captures the essence of the comics and preserves the unique look of the strips. Perlman deliyers the self—consciously dumb- ass wisecracks with just the right amount of insincerity: the lighting and art design of the film mirror the expressionist look of the comic strips. And beyond that there's fidelity to the original stories. The bulk of the film‘s plotting is lifted from the first Hell/my graphic noy'el. Seed ofDesn'ut'tirm. but also appropriates story elements from The Right Hand of Doom and Boy l’u/l of [1)”. strips that deyeloped and enriched Hellboy‘s background. character and mythos. Then there are the homages to tan layourite tales 'l'lit' ('orpst' (in \yhich the Russian 'dead head’ animated character makes a cameo in the
lilm. yoiced by tlel TOTO) and .-l/musl (rt/units (the titular
monster l‘rom \yhich. Roger the llomunculus. appears in the
lilm as set decoration). 'l‘hese iii-jokes illttstrate \\ hat a labour
of loye the film is. l‘leartening liC\\‘s. then. that Del Tom and .\lignola are currently at \york on Hell/my 2.
Hellboy is on general release from Thu 2 Sep. The book Hellboy: The Art of the Movie (Dark Horse) is out now.
Ron Perlman (far left) plays Hellboy in the movie adaptation of Mike Mignola’s comic strip. Mignola (above, second from left) and Guillermo del Tom (above, right), on set with half-man-half- fish, Abe Saplen, Hellboy’s brother in arms against the Nazis (right)
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