Director: Guillermo del Toro
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 122 minutes
Hellboy (2004) (4K UHD) – Movie Review
Hellboy was a huge success back in 2004 thanks to Guillermo del Toro’s directing skills, and of course, Ron Perlman’s performance, which just felt perfect for the Hellboy franchise. The movie was a huge success for young and old, and it spawned a sequel in 2008, which showed us more fantasy creatures in our modern-day society. Sadly, after that, things went downhill and the supposedly third installment of the series never came to be. In 2019 we received a reboot, a lot gorier than the original movies, and it was basically a huge flop. The movie failed to put down an interesting story, the cast members didn’t feel right and it was just crap overall. The ‘new’ Hellboy seemed to focus on gore rather than actual story value. Now, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment decided to rerelease the 2004 classic in a 4K UHD format, with a lot of special content. While reviewing the actual movie is pointless, we will discuss the quality of this 4K edition, as we do with all the 4K releases of ‘older’ films. The end grade will thus reflect the overall quality of this new physical release.
If you have missed the story of the 2004 film, it’s actually quite simple. You’ll get to see the origin story of Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and how he copes with his sheltered life. Originally summoned into the world by none other than the evil warlock Rasputin (Karel Roden), Hellboy finds a father figure in Dr. ‘Broom’ Bruttenholm (John Hurt). He grows up fighting the oddities and monsters endangering the lives of many but is also sick of living in hiding. When all of a sudden a new threat appears from the Nazi era, the entire organization seems to be at risk.
There is not much more to say than the thousands of reviews you can find online. Ron Perlman IS Hellboy, and the 2019 box office bomb will change nothing about that fact. The new movies’ cast felt off, and that is because the cast members of this 2004 original have somewhat become the ‘standard’ for the franchise. While properly done, a reboot could have been interesting, but the new movie strays too far off from what made this one good: Entertainment for all, believable characters, a proper story, and of course, a good flow.
This 4K edition comes with a lot of additional content, such as theatrical trailers, commentaries and another small ‘making of’ feature as the bite-sized entrée. The main extra will, of course, be the documentary ‘The Seeds of Creation’, which spans around two hours and dives into the creative process of the movie, as well as the source material. We were quite impressed, as the movie also has the option to pick the Theatrical version, as well as the Director’s cut. The latter is what is called Guillermo del Toro’s ‘final cut’, where the movie is around 16 minutes longer, with additional scenes that were not in the theater version.
Conclusion
The 4K UHD version of Hellboy is certainly worth it if you want to relive this 2004 classic in the best way possible, and have a proper amount of extra content on the disc. While it would be nice if The Golden Army would also receive this treatment, this is pretty much as good as it gets for this great ‘superhero’ film. This edition might just flush away the aftertaste of the 2019 abomination with the same name. This is certainly a great addition to your 4K collection.
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