..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Hellboy
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

With the advent of sophisticated special effects, the comic book film has become a genre unto itself. Such films are usually fantasies, but they also have a highly operatic quality, perhaps because they are based upon source material where emotions and spiritual resonance are already substantially condensed, and the narrative often seems secondary to the effects, just as it is secondary to the music in opera. Some viewers find the genre to be superficial or pointless, but then that's how some folks view comic books, and opera, for that matter. The differences between a good comic book movie and a bad comic book movie have not been extensively explored yet, because the genre is still in its formative stages, but Hellboy, released as a 2-Disc Special Edition by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment (01317, $29), seems to qualify as a successful effort. Guillermo Del Toro directed the 2004 feature, which stars Ron Perlman as a demon raised from birth by the government and working on the side of good against evil forces. He has enormous strength, is impervious to fire, and is not someone you'd like to run into in a dark alley. Rupert Evans is a young FBI agent assigned to work with him, and Selma Blair is a pyrokinetic that he has a crush on. The villains are trying to open a portal to a demon world. Although there is a logic in a monster's ability to duplicate itself that appears to be discarded when it is no longer useful, the story is relatively tight and easy to follow, the action scenes are energetic and plentiful, the effects are reasonably imaginative and there is a decent amount of humor in both the characters and their predicaments. Viewers who have not embraced the genre are not going to be won over by the effort, but those who recognize that with the limitations of the format comes a unique set of pleasures (the fantasy applications in real world environments can be highly stimulating) will find that the film delivers on its promises.

And the DVD even more so. The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 1.85:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer looks terrific no matter how dark or effects laden the environment becomes. There are some terrific rear channel effects and plenty of power in the 5.1-channel Dolby Digital soundtrack. The 122-minute program has an alternate French audio track in 5.1 Dolby, and optional English and French subtitles. (A 'Director's Cut,' running 10 minutes longer, is scheduled for release next month).

The film comes with two commentary tracks. One features Del Toro and comic book creator Mike Mignola, who served as executive producer. They spend most of their talk pointing out details that will not be otherwise obvious to casual viewers and drawing links between these details and the backstory. They also discuss the performers and how the film was staged, though not as extensively as they discuss the story and design minutiae. Nevertheless, the talk is reasonably rewarding, reinforcing a sense that the movie has been richly conceived.

Perlman, Blair, Evans and co-star Jeffrey Tambor share the second track, and they do go into more detail on the day-to-day shoot (if one wasn't present, another was), talking about how each scene was set up and what they had to endure. They have a good time hanging out together and sharing anecdotes, and the spirit of the talk rubs off on the listener. Perlman also talks about the extensive makeup applications he readily endured. "Every day I walk on the set and, you know, I have these really sexy leather pants, and I had this kind of 'V' from my shoulders down to my torso, and then one night I was finished for the day and I was getting cleaned up and I got a message, 'Guillermo wants you to come to the set and consult with him on something that one of the stunt guys is going to do.' So I walked onto the set for the first time in my civilian clothes and word started to spread, 'Hey, there's the guy playing Hellboy,' and I watched all of these young girls, who had a total crush on Hellboy, you know, process the fact, and you could see the expression on their face just, they became crestfallen, because they said, 'He's nothing but a Jew in a warmup suit.'"

The second platter holds an impressive if somewhat, by DVD standards, old-fashioned 143-minute production documentary, going over the inception of the comic book, the deal to make the film, the casting, the development of the makeup effects and special effects, the staging of the major stunt sequences and that sort of thing. There are 4 minutes of deleted scenes with optional commentary from Del Toro, an extensive selection of storyboard comparison clips, a nice presentation of character models, a cast & crew filmography section, two trailers and nine TV commercials.

September 8 , 2004

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- by Douglas Pratt

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