The world of myth and 'Hellboy'

The new "Hellboy" movie is out, and our reviewer Kenneth Turan thinks that unlike "Iron Man" or "The Incredible Hulk," "The Golden Army" is an exhilarating story that translates well to the big screen.

I'll bet, though, that Stan Lee's Marvel Movies Machine didn't experience any of the obstacles that director Guillermo del Toro and "Hellboy" creator Mike Mignola faced in making "The Golden Army." If you have a chance to read "Hellboy II: The Art of the Movie" (Dark Horse Books: 224 pp., $24.95 paper), the introduction by Del Toro shows what an ordeal it was to make this movie — even though the fantasy genre seems to be one of those surefire profit centers that studios can’t seem to make enough of.

"The scale of the sequel was huge — in fact, almost impossibly big. Especially if one considered that the first movie had grossed a modest theatrical return and that most everyone was in favor of a scaled-down sequel," he writes. "Scaled down" is hardly what Del Toro says he had in mind. He describes their effort to shop the script around town.

If you’ve ever read the "Hellboy" series, you may have noticed that Mignola’s pantheon of deities is extremely ecumenical. Several years ago, when Mignola and I did a one-on-one at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, he explained why so many familiar figures like Baba Yaga, Hecate, Rasputin, Norse gods and others appear in his stories. They’re fascinating, they have universal appeal and, he joked (though he was also quite serious), they save him an enormous amount of time trying to come up with villains from scratch.

The same seems true for the movie. Del Toro writes that he and Mignola "argued back and forth about magic beans, golden clockwork soldiers, a seemingly jarring musical duet between Abe and Hellboy." They also made an effort, he said, to avoid "the Anglo-Saxon/Celtic magical universe that is common in mainstream films" — which may be why our reviewer says the movie's fresh approach to myth is part of what makes it so enjoyable.

By the way, "Hellboy II: The Art of the Movie" includes the final shooting script for "The Golden Army," so you can memorize all of Red's best one-liners. For instance: "Memory gets pretty sketchy when you burn to death," or, as he looks over at Liz, his love interest, "I would give my life for her, but she also wants me to do the dishes!!"

Nick Owchar

(Photo credit: Egon Endrenyi / Universal Pictures)