Movie Series Review - Hellboy

For the past few years now, it seems that comic book film adaptations seem to be a big thing now, especially with DC and Marvel. But what about those who come from other comic book companies (and believe me when I say this, there are a few where you don't actually know its from a DC or Marvel comic book as the film makers just decide to hide that fact altogether). Today's comic book adaptation that I'll be looking at, is based on the comic book series of the same name by Dark Horse Comics, Hellboy. Now I will admit that I haven't read any of the comic books in this series, so my review is based on the films alone. With that in mind, let's get into these films:

Hellboy

Our film begins in 1944 where the Nazis are building a dimensional portal off coast of Scotland. With some help from a Russain Mystic called Grigori Rasputin (played by Karel Roden), they intend to free some demon entity from another dimension called the Ogdru Jahad, to help them attempt to take down the Allies. As such, Rasputin knows that this will be an apocalyptic event, but one thing leads to another and the portal gets destroyed thanks to an Allied team, which as a result, kills the some of the Germans (2 of them however, escape) and absorbs Rasputin in the process. The Allied team come across an infant demon, who due to his devilish look (or some other reason) is dubbed Hellboy and is taken to a facility known as the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development (or BPRD for short). Years later, an FBI agent known as John Myers (played by Rupert Evans), is transferred to the BPRD at the request of Trevor Bruttenholm (who lead the Allied team who found Hellboy and is played by John Hurt) where he meets 3 characters who all have some kind of super power, Hellboy (played by Ron Perlman), a physic amphibious humanoid called Abe Sapien (played by Doug Jones) and a woman who has volatile pyrokenetic abilities called Liz Sherman (played by Selma Blair and the latter of which, is in a mental hospital to protect others from her powers and is also Hellboy's love interest). After a while, news gets to Hellboy and his team that Rasputin has returned and will do anything to get what he wants, which ironically is Hellboy. Can Hellboy and his team stop this mad man? Watch to find out. Now as someone who is a sucker to comic book films, I actually liked this film. Its got a lot of humour, gives us plenty of character development for all the characters and its very action packed as well. 9/10

The Golden Army

So being distributed by Universal Pictures this time, instead of Columbia, the film starts off with a young Hellboy being told a story from his adoptive father, Trevor (played once again by John Hurt). The story is about a war between man and magical creatures, which started with man's greed. The magical creatures seem to keep losing the battle, until the master of goblin blacksmiths offers to build an army of mechanical beings, known as the Golden Army, to which the King called Balor (played by Roy Dotrice), under influence by his son, Prince Nuada (played by Luke Goss), has the blacksmith do just that. In the end, the King decides to form a truce with the humans, which is that man will keep their cities and magical creatures will keep their forests. Nuada doesn't agree to this, and leaves in exile. The magical crown which I believe Balor is using, gets broken into 2, one piece is given to the humans, the other 2 to the elves. Years later, Nuada declares war on  the humans to get the 3 pieces of the crown. He wins one piece at an auction, and kills everyone in the area (which I don't see the point of, but OK) and he kills his father, for piece number 2. His sister, Princess Nuala (played by Anna Walton and serves as Abe Sapien's love interest in this film), escapes with the third piece. At the BPRD, Hellboy is having problems with Liz, but nevertheless, decides to carry on with his job and along with her and Abe to help take down Nuada before more innocent lives are killed. But can he cope with this when Liz gives him news that could change his life altogether? Watch to find out. This film, I felt was even better than the first. Its more action packed than before, and has everything that made the last film great, only made a little bit better with the visual effects. I like it a lot. 9/10

So as a whole, the Hellboy films are great. Sure, they may not be as Superior as the films that Marvel and DC make, but its still a very good series regardless. I hope to see more in the future. 9/10