Hellboy (film)/YMMV

The films:

• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • The death of the plant elemental.
  • Prince Nuada and his sister Nuala. As the heir to the third race (Elves, Goblins and Humans), when he says "We die and the world will be poorer for it," he's speaking the truth.
    • Considering that Nuada is a genocidal madman, more like half truth.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Prince Nuada, naturally enough for an expy of Elric.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Kroenen
• Flanderization: In the comics, Tom Manning is a bureaucrat who has a hard time getting the unusual people under his command, but he's not a wholly unreasonable guy. In the movies, he's a full on Pointy-Haired Boss.
• Fridge Brilliance: Nuada's fighting style is mostly based on speed and agility, doing all kinds of elaborate maneuvers to land hits on his opponent without being hit back. And he shares a magical link with his twin sister that means that everything that physically happens to him also happens to her and vice/versa. It stands to reason that he developed his fighting style in order to keep his sister from getting hurt along with him, supported by the first fight scene where he gets hit in the face and then turns to Nuala, clearly horrified as they both start bleeding.
• Fridge Logic: The second movie in particular has Plot Holes you could drive a garbage truck through. See the Headscratchers page for a complete list.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Rasputin, obviously, though his villainy didn't start until after his historical death.
• Ho Yay: It says something about the writers (or maybe the actors) that the most romantic scene in the either of the films is two dudes getting drunk and singing "Can't Smile Without You" to each other.
  • Most romantic? Someone missed "For her, I'll cross over. And then you'll be sorry."
• Jerkass Woobie: Nuada.
• Periphery Demographic: The first film received a good review from Focus on the Family, of all people.
• Sequel Decay: Humanity goes from being heroic, productive, and cautiously positive towards ( still loosely secret ) Hellboy, to being at best useless and in the way. The biggest reason Nuada has fans is because its hard to disagree with him about humanity, as far as the sequel is concerned.
• Ugly Cute: "I'm not a baby, I'm a tumour."
  • Baby Hellboy, too.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: And relatively small budgets.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Nuada, sort of.

The animated shorts:

• What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: The animated films are in no way child-friendly, and in some ways are Darker and Edgier than even the live-action films.

The video games:

• The Problem with Licensed Games: Both Hellboy games had outdated graphics and repetitive gameplay, and the first one was full of bugs. Although The Science of Evil was supervised by Mignola and Del Toro, it didn't make up for the programming shortcomings.

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