Hellboy

Rainy day Sunday. I thought I should maybe take the day to clean my apartment. Or maybe to get some work done as I am way behind on some stuff. Or maybe go food shopping. Or maybe finally get my taxes together. Or head to the CVS for this and that. Or maybe see if a haircut place is open. Or maybe clean my computer (currently inexplicably using close to 100GB.) OR go see Hellboy. So after a debate in my head that lasted probably a minute. I headed out the door. Picked up an everything bagel with scallion, an OJ and a bag of BBQ potato chips for Hellboy. 11:45AM..

Here's the story with Hellboy. The nazis were up to something. Apparently the plan was to release some evil force that would come to the earth and destroy everything so the evil creatures could fly around and marvel at their own destruction. Then they'd ummm... well they'd laugh at their greatness and bathe in eternal fire of evil!!!... then ummm.. well, Oh! They'd maybe throw a party where they'd all dance on the most sacred places of the ruined earth!!!... then.. umm... well then they'd... lie around for a while and relish their evil victory!!!... then ummm... then they'd start questioning who's plan it was to destroy everything anyway! They'd ask why didn't they at least keep some human slaves around to work in the mines or something?! Eventually they'd see that destroying everything was a flawed logic because the destruction of everything destroyed their favorite pastime- which was destruction. And then they'd feel bored and mope and feel stupid for being greedy with the destruction. And eventually would see that with no good there can be no evil. Then they'd say, 'Shit.' 

Anyway, Hellboy was a fine looking machine. Like one of those old time big machines that were built really well. With good metal. Well oiled. It chugged along with a satisfying rhythm.. I was like, 'Wow! Damn fine machinery!' But somewhere around the 45 minute mark the machine started making a weird noise.  At first it was the type of noise that I could dismiss. Maybe even convince myself that that noise was there the whole time. But soon smoke started pouring from one of its vents and something had definitely gone wrong. I hoped maybe it could just hold out and keep running till the end of the movie. But around the one hour mark a spring popped with a big booiiinng and then hung out of the machine all limp. And the whole thing wheezed to a stop and a shudder.

An alarm sounded and little workers (they sort of looked like demonic oompa loompas) came running around to machine carrying tools and wearing hardhats. One of em had a boombox. A few of them started tinkering away at the machine and the one with boombox pressed 'play'. And blaring from the speakers came the sound that the machine used to make when it was running fine. Then they pulled a curtain shut. Behind the curtain I could hear them clanging and hammering. At one point a large screw came spinning across the floor from under the curtain and rolled to a stop at the tip of my shoe. One of the workers came out to fetch it and smiled at me as he picked up the screw. I guess he saw the concern on my face because the boombox was turned up louder after he went back inside.

Finally when the curtain was pulled open again the machine seemed to be running again. Gears were moving and the smoke was gone. But the machine looked wrong. It was like crooked or something and there was electric tape all over it. But the new noise was way different than when it started. There was a metal on metal squeal and didn't seem to have any rhythm. Smiling the workers congratulated themselves. And then they turned to me and looked for my approval. Before I could say a word, the machine made one big jolting noise. Like something jammed hard. And the whole thing collapsed in a pile. The curtain was immediately pulled shut again and they started yelling at each other. I knew the show was over.

Three Good Things About this Movie

- Hellboy was a hellagood character. There were tender moments for him and some smashy good fights. He looked great too.
- For the first 45 minutes the movie was pretty much kicking ass. It really was working.
- The evil nazi guy with the mask and knives was cool and scary.

Three Bad Things About this Movie

- It completely falls apart around the halfway point. It felt like they threw the script out the window.
- There's a big edit chop toward the end that's inexcusable. It took a huge jump and acted like 'pretend you didn't notice that, ok?'
- The storyline got to be annoyingly stupid and yawny. And I'm sick of the heads of organizations being all doubty and terrible at their jobs.

All in all though this movie is far from a disgrace. Early on alot of it actually ruled and I laughed out loud maybe 5 times. I also gasped at an action sequence and the world it tried to create was somewhat interesting and weird. The whole thing is likeable. But side characters (except for maskface) were mainly gimpy and stale and eventually logic got tossed out and the action got boring and although Hellboy himself stayed very cool throughout, when push came to shove- I realized it was only him that I really liked all along. Hellawhatever.

<<<chyatt