- This may sound strange, but the animated feature Hellboy: Sword of Storms reminds me of the famous Minnesota twin study intended to explore the relative importance of genetics and environment. Umm...perhaps I should explain. This and the Hellboy live-action films were based on the same set of characters and also employed much of the same creative team, ranging from actors Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, and Doug Jones to writer Mike Mignola and director/producer Guillermo del Toro. The biggest, most obvious difference between the two projects is that Hellboy: Sword of Storms is an animated direct-to-video feature while its theatrical counterparts are not. People, this is the closest we're ever going to get to a controlled experiment.
- So, where am I going with all of this? Well, as the upcoming (inauspiciously named) superhero flick Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice threatens to unleash an utterly stupid version of the Justice League on the world, I got to thinking: are there some subjects that just weren't meant for live-action? The more absurdly superpowered action heroes seem like maybe they weren't, which is perhaps why I've never completely enjoyed a Superman, Thor, or Hulk movie. Sure, Batman, Captain America, and Iron Man are completely implausible and exaggerated characters, too, but they're all fundamentally human in a way that those other guys are not. In the case of Hellboy, a stone-handed red devil who slays demons, I think we can safely assert that he is not intended to be realistic. His live-action films have been decent, but forgettable. His cartoon and comic incarnations, on the other hand, are supremely entertaining.
- To make this point more specifically, one of the best sequences in Hellboy: Sword of Storms (adapted very faithfully from the comics) involves a group of older people residing at a mystical spirit cabin. They invite Hellboy (Perlman) to stay with them for the evening, but he wakes up in the middle of the night only to discover that their bodies are missing heads! After weighting the bodies and tossing them in the lake, which is naturally what you should do in such a situation, he stumbles upon the heads conspiring to eat him. Hellboy engages in more than a little head-clubbing before the sun finally rises and destroys them all. Now, which of those scenes I just described would have worked in a live-action film?
- As if disembodied heads weren't enough, there is much else to recommend Hellboy: Sword of Storms, too. The voice acting is excellent, the art direction and animation are surprisingly strong, and the film even has the courtesy to incorporate lingering shots off odd statuary, a trademark of Mignola's comics. The plot, which could be succinctly summarized as Hellboy vs. Lightning and Thunder Demons, feels like it is taken from Hellboy's standard faux cryptohistorical playbook, and I don't mean that as an insult. The film even features two interesting female characters in the form of pyrokinetic Liz Sherman (Blair) and Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense agent Kate Corrigan (Peri Gilpin). Come to think of it, the inclusion of two women in significant roles is yet another way in which this cartoon is an improvement upon pretty much any live-action superhero film before or since. As Hellboy would say, "There you go."
- Although Mignola and del Toro produced, this was directed by Tad Stones and Phil Weinstein.
