Animated Movie Month - Hellboy: Sword of Storms
I’m going to clarify something before I review this. I know almost nothing about Hellboy. I’ve read a few comics here and there, watched the original two live-action movies, but that’s it. I don’t know enough about the characters to say whether this stays true to them.
What I can say though is that this isn’t a good place to start. For one thing it’s not based on any comic story as far as I can tell, it takes place in the Guillermo del Toro movie universe (not that it’s a bad thing – I liked those films). The cast of the live-action films even reprise their roles to provide the voices. And secondly: is that it’s not that interesting of a film.
I went out of my way to search my local pre-owned games and film store to find this and its sequel, Hellboy: Blood & Iron, only to find out that they’re on Amazon Prime while writing this.
Plot
Does anyone remember those Saturday morning cartoons that tried to be all serious and dark, but ended up just coming across as if they were trying too hard and failed? Hellboy: Sword of Storms is a Saturday morning cartoon, but it doesn’t shy away from that fact. It embraces it to an extent.
I’m not going to pretend that I’m not disappointed that this wasn’t a lot darker in tone and story, as one would hope from a Hellboy film. It presents itself as a child friendly story, and even with the 12 (PG-13) rating, you could look past the art style (more on that later). Still though, Sword of Storms doesn’t tell a story you haven’t seen before.
With awkward comedy that got one laugh from me, the plot is as simple and straightforward as it can get. I think that it could have worked better as a TV show.
“A professor of folklore opens a forbidden scroll and becomes possessed by the ancient Japanese demons of Thunder and Lightning, who seek to return and dominate our world. The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense sends Hellboy and a team of agents to investigate, but when Hellboy picks up a samurai sword, he literally disappears into a weird wonderland of Japanese legends, ghosts and monsters. Meanwhile, B.P.R.D. agents Kate Corrigan and Russell Thorne are on the trail of the possessed professor to bring Hellboy back.”
That plot isn’t that interesting. It could have been, had they not split the story into three separate plot threads, with Hellboy’s being the weakest personally. The focus is split between Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) & Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and Kate Corrigan (Peri Gilpin) & B.P.R.D. Psychic Russell (Phil LaMarr). Each interconnecting in one way or another, although only minor, with Hellboy’s pushing the plot forward, but leaving the details to the other threads.
I’d rate them in this order:
- Liz & Abe
- Hellboy
- Corrigan & Russell
I don’t know how much of a talker Hellboy is, but I feel that they didn’t do him much justice here, most of his plot is focused on moving from one monster to another without any development to his own plot. Each monster becomes bigger and therefore more dangerous, but I wasn’t invested, as it turned into the same over and over. Hellboy struggles to fight, throws a punch or two and beats the monster. Rinse and repeat throughout the entire film. We don’t even learn what most of the monsters are, just that they are based on Japanese mythology.
I don’t get why Hellboy wasn’t getting the plot development and explanation to him. Instead, Liz and Abe were given that task.
I’m not complaining though. Apart from the seven years’ worth of exposition spewed every 20 minutes, their story progressed somewhere. While we learnt the most about the plot through them and Corrigan, the part that interested me was the slight hint of a romance blossoming between Abe and Liz. They also get the most character development out of the entire cast. Liz becomes more comfortable with using her powers, while Abe starts to have feelings towards his partner.
I don’t know what they were doing with Corrigan, Russell and the villain here. Corrigan and Russell were just comedic relief with some plot details thrown in every now and again and the villain wasn’t even in the film until the last 5 minutes. Yes, the possessed guy had some semblance of a presence, but he didn’t do anything the entire film. He dropped a few monsters to try and defeat Hellboy, but other than that, he wasn’t there. I don’t even remember their names.
I want to spend the next paragraph or two complaining about the movie’s issue with exposition dumps. It has way too many and they last way too long. We have an opening narration, a full minute long explanation as to who the villains are (who don’t turn up until the last 5 minutes and hardly get mentioned, so thanks for that I guess.) and an explanation of what would happen if they get resurrected. Which they could have just shown without explaining it.
Animation
As I mentioned earlier, this feels like a children’s cartoon, and the art style doesn’t help with that. I honestly think that it’s quite similar to 2004’s The Batman (I don’t know why everything keeps reminding me of that show. It could be that, it was the art style of the 2000’s), but the character design shows that it’s not afraid of being boring. I know that the designs are based on their characters, but at least try to make them look a little more interesting.
One of my complaints is that the villains aren’t that memorable, especially the big bad as they have generic demon designs that I’ve seen elsewhere.
Another would be the lack of consistency. There are several occasions where things completely change in appearance. One of which is the magical scroll. When the professor picks it up before becoming possessed, it’s a simple, blank scroll with Japanese Kanji inscribed on it. The next we see it later in the plot it’s a full-on art piece. Unless it happened to be another scroll with the same story told on it, just illustrated. That’s an error.
Liz, one of the main protagonists, who wears a B.P.R.D. (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) uniform, doesn’t stand out from any of the other B.P.R.D. members. If I didn’t know who it was, I would think that she’s just a background character getting some screen time.
Complaints aside, I enjoyed the art style, it reminded me of my childhood, growing up watching shows with a similar style. The more I watched, the more I grew used to it. But I wouldn’t mind a more serious and adult style or even one similar to Mike Mignola’s himself.
Voice Acting
Now, I don’t know if this was just me, but I felt that almost everyone’s performances were rather flat. Especially Ron Perlman, who delivered every line as if he was reading it sarcastically or didn’t care, making it hard to tell when he was actually being sarcastic.
Yet, on the other hand, Selma Blair and Doug Jones do a great job with their characters, managing to be subtle with their expressions, but not enough to feel as if they aren’t paying attention (looking at you Perlman). There are, however some moments in the more dramatic scenes where they could perhaps put a little more effort into it.
Conclusion
Hellboy: Sword of Storms is a great film for young teens but fails to be engaging with its main protagonist and story, It can be an enjoyable watch nonetheless, if you have the time to pass.
