There were many movies which I went to see over the summer that I did not do any specific review for. The one I most wanted to talk about is Hellboy II; it’s an odd film, and I don’t know exactly how one is meant to take it as a whole. It’s post-modern that way. There are many ways one can interpret it. But what else do you expect from a movie about a demon, the son of Satan, who is a hero that prays the rosary and to St Malachi?
Spoilers below.
Probably one of its best examples of the difficulty one can have interpreting the film is found at the end. Hellboy is fighting Prince Nuada (typical action movie ending). But he is not doing too well. The prince has the upper hand throughout the first. The main reason for this is that Hellboy knows that if he kills the prince, the prince’s innocent twin sister, Princess Nuala, will die. The two are linked, and what happens to one will happen to the other. And Hellboy’s best friend, Abe Sapien, is in love with the princess and doesn’t want her hurt. So Hellboy is trying to find a way to win without killing the prince, but the prince has no qualms in killing Hellboy. In the end, Princess Nuala kills herself. This ending shows us that violence will only perpetuate itself, and can’t save the day; it is only an act of self-sacrifice, done out of love, that saves the day. Yet the sacrifice was suicidal, and therefore violent.
Another interesting example is found half-way into the film. Hellboy is looking for information about the prince; it’s a desperate situation, and he needs the information to help save the world. He’s willing to use force to get it. There is this troll family which seems to know some information (two adult trolls and what looks like a baby held in the hands of one of them). He starts to interrogate the troll without the baby, and he isn’t talking. He starts taking the one with the baby, pounding it in the head, but avoiding the baby, trying to keep it safe. Eventually he gets the information he wants, and apologizes to the baby, saying it shouldn’t worry, everything will now be ok, his parents will be fine. Basically, it was typical talk, talking down to a baby, trying to encourage it, referencing the fact that it is a baby and Hellboy knew how difficult it must have been on the baby to see all it saw. But then comes the joke: the baby responds, “I’m not a baby, I’m a tumor.” The pro-abortion meme that compares a fetus with a tumor is brought out in the open, and ridiculed. It’s a pro-life scene; but yet, it’s a torture scene. How are we to take this? Is there some deeper message in this scene which accounts for the two together?
Finally, how are we to take the relationship between Liz and Hellboy? They are in love, but having lovers quarrels throughout the film. Hellboy doesn’t know what is up and why Liz is being touchy. The answer, which he is to find out later, is that Liz is pregnant. There is a point in the film when Hellboy is dying, and his friends and Liz are trying to find a way to save him. They encounter “the angel of death” who says it can save Hellboy, but reminds Liz that Hellboy is predicted to “bring the apocalypse to the world.” That could change if he dies. Will she have Hellboy saved even if it meant the world, one day, would be destroyed? She answers yes. On the one hand, this sounds selfish. Of course Hellboy should die if it will save the world. And yet looking at it deeper, he is not yet guilty of such action, and perhaps he will never be guilty of it; one can’t execute people, sacrifice them, based upon obscure “predictions of the future.” One can’t treat someone guilty of actions they have not done, even if you think one day they will do them.
Hellboy II is a film quite unlike what one would expect of a film with such a name. It’s certainly a dark comedy; but what makes it great is how it subverts expectations, showing how post-modernism has influenced del Toro when writing the script. Interestingly enough, written by the same writer-director as Pan’s Labyrinth, it shares many of the same themes, but it gives us more, and in a better way, of what the audience wanted out of Pan’s Labyrinth. I certainly would recommend it.
4/5 stars.
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