What The Hellboy? pt 3

NOTE: This article contains satire and is not to be taken seriously.

WARNING: This article contains EXTREME SPOILERS.

Please read part 1 and part 2 before continuing.

It's at this point that the audience has to endure an extremely stupid sequence where Abe is looking for the proper love song for the Princess, then Hellboy comes with beer and the two get smashed and chat in slurring voices about women. They even sing along with the song! It's painful.

Meanwhile, the Prince finally arrives at the Bureau, and his sister, aware of this, throws the map and cylinder into the fire and hides the crown piece in the poetry book she'd been reading. As Hellboy and Abe continue to act like douches, the Prince finds his twin and caresses her in a rather incestuous way while sighing loving words to her in a breathy voice. He knows that she'd hidden the crown piece in a book, but apparently, although he was able to pinpoint the building she was in from miles away, he's not able to pinpoint the book she put it in while they're in the same room together, even when she foolishly glances at the book she hid it in on the shelf. Yeah, that's relay smart, you dumb broad. It's a good thing he wasn't watching your eyes. The Prince does, however, manage to get the the map by taking the red-hot metal cylinder out of the fire, bare-handed, and rolling it out onto a piece of... parchment, I guess. Anyway, it leaves burn marks in the shape of the map. Apparently the cylinder not only contained the map, but had it engraved as well. Why? If this is supposed to be a super-secret place that you don't want anyone to find who shouldn't, why put the map on a metal cylinder? Wouldn't that mean that the map couldn't easily be destroyed, thus making the place you're trying to hide easier to find, as is the case here? Ugh!

Anyway, the Princess manages to sound an alarm that draws everyone to the correct room (how? I don't know--maybe they share the twins' psychic link or something), where, but for a moment's stumbling, Hellboy and Abe completely forget that they're drunk. The slurring and everything is completely gone, though Hellboy DOES lose to the Prince (well, he is trying not to hurt the Prince, since Abe informs him that hurting the Prince would also hurt the Princess, just before the elf does a sneak-attack; he's not very honorable for a prince of elves, is he?), who stabs him with his growing magical spear and breaks off the tip inside of his chest. In the Princess' credit, she doesn't buckle to giving away the location of the piece, even as the Prince is totally kicking Hellboy's ass. A lesser man (*cough* Abe, Liz *cough*) would have given in.

"I'm not going to show you where the crown piece I'm holding is hidden! Nevah!"

So, the Prince demands he get the crown piece within so much time, or else he'll kill the Princess (who he takes along with him). Unfortunately for the merry band of anti-heroes, they are unable to remove the shard from Hellboy, as every time they come nearer, the shard moves closer to Hellboy's heart. How? Magic.

After some would-be tearful moments (if this movie was put together well enough to actually elicit an emotional response), Abe figures out which book the crown piece must be in (the one she had been reading) and takes it out. Meanwhile, Strauss, Manning, and Liz are discussing where the golden army is stored. They've figured out where, but Strauss says that they have their orders from Washington to not go there should they find the crown piece, lest they risk letting the golden army out. Liz, being an emotion-driven bonehead, whines about how they'll "just let him [Hellboy] die." Hmm... Let's see. Go and ask the Prince to remove the shard for them in exchange for the crown piece, thus bringing about the end to all mankind, Hellboy and his friends most likely included, or let Hellboy die. Tough decision, innit?

"Agent Sheyrmon, may I remind you zat I eem ze leater oof zis team?" "Oh, there's no doubt about that, sir. That is what you are, Dr. Krauss, and if ever you were human, that time is long gone." Ohhhh, snap! She went there! Krauss straightens like he just got hit with a yo momma joke or something, and you can tell it's this big, emotional thing. Uh... If ever he was human... he would risk the survival of all humankind for a demon he barely knows and doesn't like? Yup, I guess that makes sense.

Well, after Liz storms out like the senseless woman that she is, Abe, who had also been waiting to be called upon like a good boy, backs away and leaves (it is revealed that he has the crown piece with him), without mentioning what he found. Gee, I wonder where he's going with that. Everyone goes to look for the crown piece, while Krauss waits behind and looks at... a piece of leather, I guess.

"Heloo yoong loowers, whooeweh you eer, I hoop yew chroobelss oor few. Ooll moy goot visheess goo vidd you toonide, Ei'ff been een looff loike you.... "

Then Abe walks up to Liz, who is burning in anger, and she says that, even without the piece, they will have to take get Hellboy out of there and take him to the Prince. Yeah, because the Prince is such a nice guy, I'm sure he'll oblige. Then, when Abe glances nervously away, Liz reaches out and grabs him with her burning hand, then glances at her hand and extinguishes the flame. Uh... Okay. I mean, she was on fire! Shouldn't it at least have singed his outfit? No, it didn't. Big surprise. One could argue that maybe she only burns what she wants to burn, but if that's the case, then why does everyone have to flee when she, say, burned all those tooth fairies earlier on? Couldn't she have focused on only burning them?

Anyway, Abe agrees and they prepare a jet for take-off, trying to hurry before they get stopped for not having authorization to scramble. As they help Hellboy through the halls, Krauss walks up to the three and asks if they have clearance. Liz threateningly pulls out a pistol and says that he won't stop them, but Krauss says that, to the contrary, he has "geeven eet some thought" and that they should be able to save Hellboy. "You say I'm not human anymore, but you are wrong. I understand your pain all too well. A long time ago, I lost the woman I loved; it was, in fact, the source of my present misfortune. I will tell you about it one day, but for now, the tactical advantage is ours! ....Screw the clearance, we will take that [unintelligible]! (insert your own accent into the prior quote)" Unsurprisingly, Krauss never actually tells them the story of his love during the movie, which means that this was all a cheap cop-out to get him to join the rebels. Decades and decades of following the rules meticulously, and just because Liz is a whiny bitch, he decides to turn his back on everything that he's stood for in order to help out a guy he barely knows and doesn't like, possibly at the expense of the entire human race?

"Scroo ze rools! I heff en exccent!"

See, it's that kind of unrealistic character development that puts me off to the movie. This is completely out of character for Krauss, even if he did have a lost love. He's far too logical, by-the-books, and precise to change like this. It just makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever. Sure, you can slap an "I lost a love, too" excuse onto any character and make them change however you like, but it's cheap and cliche'.

So they're all on their way to Ireland, where the golden army is apparently stored. There, while looking for the entrance, they randomly come across not only a goblin, but the goblin who forged the golden army in the first place. He's missing an arm and his lower body because, as is revealed later, he got badly burned while working the forges. Instead, he seems attached to a wooden cart, which he wheels around by pulling himself along on the ground. Yeah, that's right. This goblin has survived thousands of years, chopped in two, going around with his upper half sitting on a cart. Is that stupid? Oh, yeah, that's stupid.

"How do I take a shit?!"

The goblin says that, in exchange for the "shiny thing under the bandage" (the broken-off spear point), he will show them where the entrance to where the golden army is hidden is. After informing him that they can't take it out without killing Hellboy, he says that he knows someone who can and asks if they will trade with him then. They all pause as if considering the idea, which seems kind of funny as the whole reason they're here is to get the shard out, but at last they agree. So, the goblin awakens some stone golem, which sits up, revealing the entrance in its chest. Christ, is this Hellboy, or the Chronicles of Narnia? Because that sounds like something from The Silver Chair.

"Proceed. Touch nothing but the lamp!"

So, after foolishly entering the mystical doorway of potential doom with the weird goblin they just met, the bunch come to a big hole which the goblin implies had been a city at one point, but a plague of "death and silence" befell them after the golden army was stored there. Okaaay. Why? There's no curse associated with the golden army, so why did that happen? There's no reason. After a bit, they come to a big crack in the wall, where the goblin asks Liz and Hellboy to enter, and the rest to remain put. They agree, because someone that ugly and disfigured can't have bad intentions in mind, right?

Once inside, he greets his "friend", who is apparently some angel of death and looks like the love child of Tyrael and the Mouth of Sauron. How that copulation took place, I dare not imagine. Maybe the grandfather was Jeepers Creepers.

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While the goblin continues to whine about wanting his shiny (seriously? I once roleplayed a retarded character who was like that, back when I was an amateur--this is some crap writing), the angel of death hisses to Liz about how Hellboy will eventually bring about the end of the Earth and asks if she's sure that she wants him saved, and, like a complete MORON, she insists that she does. Because, you know, the fate of everything that lives is trivial next to true love. Awww...

Seriously, what a selfish bitch. That really pissed me off about the Matrix movies, too. Maybe it's all noble and stuff to risk the fate of the world for someone you love, but it's also fuckin' stupid. Would I do the same? If I really loved someone, I may, but it's still damn annoying to watch them act so stupid. This is why superheros should never have a significant other--it's always a crutch.

Where was I? Oh, right. The angel of death magically extracts the daggerhead, cackles about Liz having chosen the doom of the world or something, thereby sealing the fact that there will be more sequels in the future. I certainly hope that they turn out better than this one! "You, my dear, will suffer more than anyone." "I'll deal with it." Well, good for you. What about all the billions of other people? What about their loves that will be lost? God!

Okay, okay, I'm done. So Hellboy is healed (after Liz "gives him a reason to live", whispering in his ear that he'll be a father--really, give him a reason to live? isn't being with her reason enough?), the goblin gets his shiny, and they all go to where the golden army is being kept.

They enter the chamber where the Prince and Princess are and the former asks something that I couldn't understand because of the poor voice compression. Krauss tries to answer, but is cut off with, "I wasn't addressing you, Tinman." Wow. I like how the Prince, who has been an exile from society and hates humans, references a classic work of human literature. And by "like", I mean "think that's really stupid." Sure, it may seem like I'm nit-picking, but keep in mind that every line of dialog, every action, every plot twist, was thought out and written down, so it's not a boo-boo like a character's makeup scar moving around from scene to scene, but rather an intentional work, which I feel I have every right to criticize.

Moving on, Abe gives up the crown piece he found for the sake of his love, the Princess. Why, exactly? Didn't they all go to Ireland to get Hellboy healed? Now that he's healed, couldn't they just go back home and leave the Prince without his full crown? I guess that Blue did come for the girl, but why would the Prince just give her up, even if he had his army? Couldn't they take her by force? I mean, what's the Prince going to do, hurt his beloved twin, and, vicariously, himself? Abe's defense is, "you would do the exact same for Liz." I guess that makes them all stupid, Abe and Liz in particular, since they're both willingly gambling the lives of everyone on the planet for the sake of their quaint little warm fuzzies. How pathetic.

GLOMP!

From here, it's mostly a lot of action, for better or worse. The Prince activates the golden army, they all march up and start fighting our intrepid would-be heroes, and chaos ensues. I find it funny, for instance, that Hellboy is able to blow apart these metal machines with his shotgun pistol. Have you ever tried blowing apart a car engine with buckshot? Not that easy.

Then, Krauss possesses one of the machines and begins going on a rampage. I have to wonder, since this is his first time in that body, why is it that he is able to fight far better than any of the other machines? It takes them forever to take him down. While we're at it, why doesn't he just possess the Prince and make him remove his crown? Durr, because that would make sense, I suppose.

Also, I'm guessing that it's magic, and not actual technology, that allows the machines to rebuild themselves after being destroyed. Either way, it looks a bit dumb. It's kind of like the Iron Giant, except completely overdone.

So, at last, Hellboy gets the brilliant idea of challenging the Prince for his right to command (who would have seen THAT coming?). If all you have to do is challenge him, then there's no threat, right? If anyone, at all, sees the golden army coming, just call out a challenge and go into hiding. The golden army will stop functioning, just like that. No problem. Even if it didn't work quite that way, you could easily have someone challenge the Prince's rule, then, I don't know, SHOOT the motherfucker while he was playing with his overcompensating spear.

After challenging the Prince's right to command (after some bullshit about Hellboy having royal blood somehow or another...), the Prince gives Hellboy what looks like a half-katana to fight with against his own spear. And Hellboy wins. Quite decisively. How? Hellboy has lived for, what, 64 years? He fights with, what, his fists and a pistol? Yet, he grabs up this sword and somehow bests an elf who has apparently been practicing with his spear for thousands of years. Can someone explain that to me, please? Because, personally, I think it's yet another glaring plot hole.

Doesn't Prince Angst look an awful lot like that pale guy at the end of The Time Machine in this shot?

After awhile, Hellboy begins pussyfooting around, riding gears and just evading Prince Angst, until, finally, the Princess stabs herself in order to stop her brother. Wow, at least one woman in this movie has some sense. There's some drawn-out death scene that I really don't give a shit about, because this movie has done nothing to make me sympathize with the characters. Instead, they just piss me off. Then, the Pale Prince turns into a statute (because that's what happens when elves die... duh) and, for some reason, crumbles apart. Uh, what made him break apart? What, no answer, just another plot hole? Oh, okay.

So then Abe's left caressing his love's statue (probably glad that he didn't have his cock in her when she died) and acting all mournful, which is kind ironic, really, because it's his fault that they came to this place and had this trouble at all. They could have just healed Hellboy and gone home, and left the Prince to wallow, but no. He had to save the girl. Well, how do you feel about it now, fish-boy? Pleased with your stupid decisions now?

In the end, Liz takes the command crown and melts it with her uber-heat, which again begs the question of how no one else seems bothered by the heat, how her clothes never incinerate, etc. No, it's not nit-picking, it's bad story-telling. They could have put a reason, but they instead insult everyone by assuming they're too stupid to pick up on that. At least in Fantastic Four, they had some kind of (weak though it may have been) explanation for why the flame guy's suit doesn't burn up.

Now, I do like the final line that Dr. Krauss gives to Manning after everyone else has quit and he decides to join them ("Suck my ectoplasmic [something that sounds German]!"). However, I would again point out the fact that him going against protocol, let alone downright quitting, is completely out of character. Hell, why would any of them quit? How has the Bureau hurt them in any way? True, they put the lives of the human race above the life of Hellboy himself, but as a hero, shouldn't he be willing to sacrifice himself to save the world, anyway? Isn't that why he fights? Besides that and Manning just being a dickhole, what's the point of leaving? They'll probably be missing their cool gadgets and purpose in life pretty fast and come crawling back (not, they'll probably be doing great in some suck-ass sequel).

Finally, Liz reveals to Hellboy that there will be, not one, but two children. And she found this out... how? She's showing no signs of being pregnant, which means that it's most likely too early to tell by ultrasound, and Abe only said that she was pregnant, not how many there were (how would he know what a pregnancy sounds like, anyway? has he touched a lot of pregnant women? considering how he usually lives in his tank, I'm guessing not). How, then, would she know? And again, I think that physics would really, really work against Hellboy and, well, any woman copulating. It certainly wouldn't be a pleasant experience for the woman, in any case. Also, is she nuts? Even if Hellboy is a nice enough guy, I'm pretty sure that, if I were a woman, I wouldn't want to have demon-seed festering in my womb, making an anti-Christ or something.

Now, after all of this, you probably think that I really, really hate this movie. Well, honestly, no, I don't. I think it's alright. It's better than most of what's out there, for certain. However, the movie has gotten an 88% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes. That's just insane! That's even better than the original, which at least made sense in its own little world. There is no way this movie deserves that kind of rating. Look at my review--there are glaring problems (or at least oddities) in pretty much every scene. I'm not sure what disillusioned everyone about this movie, but I guess I looked the wrong way when all the rainbows and happy unicorns were prancing about. Either that, I or I'm not apt to suck up to the director, Guillermo del Toro, who everyone is creaming their pants over these days. Honestly, I'm really willing to say that it's not his fault, nor the actors' fault. I mean, there are a lot of great actors in this film, including Ron Perlman, the guy who, among other things, does the trademark "War. War never changes." intro for Fallout games. Instead, I think I will blame the writers for this mess. Maybe I am nitpicking at parts, but a lot of these things are pretty obvious inconsistencies, and I reassert that the character design is pretty poor and the special effects very unrealistic for a modern film.

To top it all off, some kids were saying, "I wish they had shown the baby..." and "I wonder what the baby will look like..." and such jibberish as I exited the theater. You know what? Children suck as sequel devices. Take, for instance, Lady and the Tramp 2, Balto 2, The Little Mermaid 2, hell, [classic Disney cartoon] 2 of almost any kind! They're absolute shit, and to anyone who disagrees, I would simply point to The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as a shining example. Look at how bad Shrek 3 was, and that pretty much featured the offspring. No, I hope that Liz and Hellboy get into a fight, break up, and give away or abort the little twerp. If not, I have a feeling that the next sequel will be a real stillbirth.

More: Bum Review, review 1, review 2, review 3, review 4