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Hellboy: Sword Of Storms

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By: DThompson | in: Comics, Movies |

While the flesh-eating zombie is America’s true addition to the horror cannon (that and Ann Coulter, brrr), the comic book is our great gift to the world of literature. It’s a book, it’s a movie, it’s both!

Hellboy

Now, with the miraculous new medium of DVD, it really IS both. Welcome to Hellboy: Sword Of Storms the new animated (well barely animated) adventure, wherein our hero Hellboy, guided by a spirit fox, travels through a mystical Japanese spirit realm fighting any manner of spirit demons and spirit demon spawn and saves the world. Sorry for giving the ending away.
You could be excused for hoping, since the box is covered with art by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, that they’ve based the animation on his unique style. But, ofcourse, no such luck. Sword of Sorms wants to be Friday night at the movies but the art is Saturday morning standard, maybe a bit above your average Scooby-Doo cartoon, but not much. Mignola and Benicio Del Toro get the odd credit of “Creative Producer” which sounds a lot like Executive Producer which generally means “I didn’t do anything but my agent swung me this credit so I could get 5% off the back end.”

Hellboy

Though Mignola also shares story credit he does not get a screenplay credit so, yeah, he threw out a few ideas, picked up his check and walked. With the animation not so hot this movie really has to hang its hat on its characters and plot. Though the Hellboy character is suffused with his usual dry wit he’s only sporadically amusing. It’s second banana Abe Sapien who comes off best, he even gets to make out with pyrochik Liz, how cool is that for a slimy gill man?
Unfortunately the could-have-been interesting attempt at an Asian change of pace is handled in a rote manner. If you’ve seen a Hong Kong ghost movie from the eighties you know what’s going to happen. It might have been better if H-boy had gone to China, met the ghost of Mao Tse Tung and spent his and our time fighting off the excesses of the one-party system China suffers under. There’s some REAL demons for ya. That would have maintained the exotic Asian theme the producers thought would bring the fanboys in while delivering a story only intensely boring.
The whole groaning mess culminates in some spirit demon-driven pyrotechnics that reminded me of Ghostbusters II. Though no one gets a mask ripped off at the very end, a-la Scooby-Doo, this has a ghostly conclusion so sappy you wish it would happen.
VERDICT: For The Kids

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Posted on February 19, 2007

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