Man, I wish I could get my money back- this one was a stinker. Not that it had no good elements- HB himself looked pretty good, and the character turned out to be less cheesy than I'd feared he'd be. Big thumbs up to Ron Perlemann for his superb portrayal of Big Red. Unfortunately that's pretty much where the good stuff ends.
First, I thought the effects were pretty lame. Oh, the Predator/RE Licker creatures looked okay, but there was way too much mediocre CG for my tastes. And let's not even start on the Dark God at the end.
For that matter, if a belt of grenades can kill it, then what were they all so worried about? Let the other 6 thru and have 'em mopped up before dinner.
And what was with "Voldo", the sand-filled mummy assassin? I gather that Rasputin can do, uh, pretty much whatever the story required him to, powers-wise. Why is that, I wonder? Probably better not to ask. I guess those powers extend to granting eternal youth to your girlfriend, which would of course let you get a few more miles out of the relationship!
God, even for movie agents, those FBI guys assigned to "help" Red were just baggage. Man, their job coulda been performed as well by a bucket of sand with a gun stuck in it. Their incompetance seems to even extend to an inability of count to two!
It was a shame how some characters that could have been interesting were just underutilized. I don't know the book, so maybe that was by design, but they just sorta forgot Abe in the second half of the movie. Yeah, I guess he was back in his aquarium licking his wounds, but I nearly forgot he was there. And Liz really doesn't have much to do but batt her eyes and give HB someone to fawn over. Actually, she saves his bacon towards the end, but just what happened there had me mystified. She burns the cave, then they all wake up...in shackles? Huh? How'd that happen?
And if the ol' proffessor really loved Red like a son, why no attempt to fight his fate or at least leave some cryptic warning that only the Good Guys would recognize to try to keep him from walking into a trap? That seemed really odd to me.
Despite my copious criticism of this two-star movie, I would actually be interested in a sequel. Why? The Hell Boy character is a riot! I can see why some liked the film even tho I didn't. Abe has the makings of an interesting character, too. And the camera loves Selma Blair. If they developed her characters powers a bit more, even if she doesn't learn to control them, she would be an interesting super character. And there seemed to be decent chemistry there between HB & Liz.
Looks like they're gonna need some more FBI guys, though.
