One of the few comics from the 90's that I find appealing is Mike Mignola's Hellboy. Mignola found a the perfect brew of superheroics and horror in this fun and compelling character. I got to watch both again this past weekend.
When Hellboy was made into a movie I was pretty interested to see what they did, and how the character could be realized on screen. There's pretty much nothing they can't do in movies today, but would it be interesting beyond the mere curiosity of seeing the characters walking around in an apparently real world.
The first Hellboy movie is pretty dang good, with a wonderful mash-up of the first several Mignola storylines featuring Nazis, immortal Russian sorcerers, the talking dead, and Lovecraftian threats from beyond the imagination. The movie is a wonderfully paced bit of adventure with enough humor to keep it spiced and some great action that stays just within the range of interest.
The sequel I never felt was necessary, but nonetheless I did see Hellboy and the Golden Army. This time high-fantasy of a Tolkien or Dunsany sort replaces the grittier mileau of Lovecraft and we find Hellboy fighting an Elven prince who wants to transform the modern world and bring back the good old days of magic and nature. The effects are more fantastic and sadly so much so that Hellboy himself and his colleagues lose some of their own weirdness, the oddity that makes them compelling. There's so much strange going on, that none of it seems all that special alas.
But despite its weaknesses, both Hellboy and its sequel are movies with great heart and the themes of being and becoming faithful parents and children is a nice way to bind the thread of the narrative. But it's much more successful and poignant in the original than the sequel.
Hellboy is highly recommended and the sequel less so.
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