After the theatrical Hellboy saw moderate success, the studio greenlit a series of animated film. The first was Sword of Storms.
A professor finds an ancient scroll that tells the story of a samurai who defeated two storm demons and traps them in a sword. The professor becomes possessed from reading the scroll and goes missing.
While investigating the the missing professor, the Bureau finds the sword. Upon touching it, Hellboy is transported to another world, a mystical version of Japan.
Basically, the film completely separates Hellboy from the rest of the cast. While this could have worked, nobody else gets much to really do, they are just searching for Hellboy. However, Hellboy is constantly dealing with fun monsters inspired by Japanese folklore.
The big draw for the film was the live action film’s voice cast appearing. And we get some of the chemistry, but by separating the cast for much of the movie, it never feels like they get to gel…and granted, part of that may be due to the process of recording for animation, as actors are often not interacting with each other. I feel this is especially true with Jones’ performance…which feels a lot more aggressive than his vocal performance in the Golden Army.
The character design Sean “Cheeks” Galloway is pretty slick and stylish, with its own distinct look. It turned out that one of the conditions of the animated films was that the animation style could not look like the art of Mike Mignola, which had been the directors’ original plan. While that might have been cool, Galloway’s angular and cartoony style is quite good.
While not quite as fun as the live action Del Toro films, there is some really fun sequences in this animated take on Hellboy.
This is a Spoiler Free Review. This also means it will be super short.
For a time it appeared as if 2008’s Hellboy and the Golden Army was the last time we were going to see Hellboy on the big screen. But then, a few years ago, new talk of a third Hellboy film emerged. Guillermo Del Toro and Perlman both had expressed plenty of interest. But then something happened. Creator and owner of Hellboy, Mike Mignola and Del Toro could not come to a unified vision and Mignola brought his character to a new creative team.
Set 300 years after all but one “sky city” fell to the earth, Dr. Dyson Ido finds the remains of a cyborg with a still functional human brain. In this future, cybernetic are a part of life, there are many that have cybernetic limbs. Ido runs a clinic helping the people of the earthbound Iron City that is in the shadow of Zalem. He provides her with a body and when she awakens with no memories, he names her Alita.
Veronica, Linda and Alice have lost their husbands in a tragedy. They discover their husbands were professional thieves. To add to their grief, they find their lives under siege, specifically from Jamal Manning. While he is running for public office, Manning is also a local crime lord…and it so happen’s the women’s husbands died stealing from him. He wants his money and gives them a month.
After 2000’s Unbreakable, there was a lot of talk that this was almost meant to be part of a trilogy. Shyalaman has been all over the map. He claimed he had no such plans when Unbreakable first came out…but about a year later talked about sequels. And I really loved Unbreakable. I wanted to get those follow ups. I wanted to see what David Dunn would do next.
After Signs, Shyalaman’s career took a hit. Critics were brutal and try as he might, his films were not grabbing fans. It was not until 2015’s Visit that he seemed to be picking up some steam.
After the wild success of the Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan re-teamed with Bruce Willis for another film. Of course, everyone wanted to know what he would do next.
Tripping Through Gateways 