Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 27, 2006, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Given that Mike Mignola, who created the visually distinctive and shadowy world of Hellboy in comics, and Guillermo del Toro, who vividly brought that realm to the big screen, are billed as “Creative Producers” on Hellboy: Sword of Storms, one can be forgiven for expecting a little more than this animated feature (premiering on the Cartoon Network) delivers. Not that the depth of character, mythology or scares from those former incarnations should be expected from an adaptation aimed squarely at younger viewers—but without them, there’s little to distinguish Sword of Storms (directed by Phil Weinstein and supervising director Tad Stones, scripted by Matt Wayne and Stones from a story by Mignola and Stones) from the countless other animated adventures battling it out on the tube. This is Hellboy Lite, diverting enough for 78 minutes and worth a look for the franchise’s completists, but largely lacking the values that made the comic and film so memorable.
One plus is the fact that the key talents from the feature have been reassembled to provide the voices: Ron Perlman, whose dry basso delivery is perfect for a demon who’s been pressed into heroic service but finds battling evil more of an inconvenience than a compulsion; Selma Blair as the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman; and Doug Jones, who physically performed fishman Abe Sapien on the big screen and does his vocals here, replacing David Hyde Pierce. (In what may be a bit of in-joke casting, Pierce’s Frasier co-star Peri Gilpin performs Sword of Storms’ Kate Corrigan.) After an Indiana Jones-esque prologue pitting our trio of heroes against Mayan mummies and other critters, the main story comes to focus on the titular ancient Japanese blade, which holds the key to unleashing the demons of Thunder and Lightning on Earth. When a professor becomes possessed by those evil spirits, Hellboy is dispatched to Japan, and when he picks up the sword, he is transported to an alternate realm where he must do battle with assorted Japanese creatures and demons. Liz and Abe, meanwhile, run a gamut of natural disasters and monsters heralding Thunder and Lightning’s return to our world…
…and that’s pretty much all the plot we got. It’s an A-to-B-to-C storyline that doesn’t allow for much drama other than the question of how Hellboy or Liz/Abe will get out of their current scrape—in fact, the brief dramatization of the sword’s backstory, involving a samurai’s battle to save his lady love from demonic sacrifice, is more compelling than anything in the main narrative. As amusing as Perlman’s characterization is, Hellboy is pretty much given one note to play, and there are only very quick hints of Liz’s uncertainty of how far she can handle her powers, and of a potential romantic attraction to Abe (fickle…wasn’t she last seen clinching with Hellboy at the end of del Toro’s movie?).
Still, Sword of Storms moves well, with occasional nice details in the animation, a robust, feature-worthy score by Christopher Drake and a bottomless variety to the supernatural foes faced by the protagonists. The visual style takes its cues from anime, and there are a number of pleasing references to Asian films past. A battle with a spider-lady and her creepy “children” takes place in a color-coded forest seemingly inspired by Zhang Yimou’s Hero; ghost-girls with snakelike necks hark back further to Kwaidan; and some yokai (including an umbrella monster!) show up to annoy Kate and a psychic investigator. For young viewers, this incarnation of Hellboy can serve as a first step to discovering the richer territory mined on the page and the big screen; those of us who already know and love them can hope that the next cartoon feature, Blood and Iron (featuring a Countess Bathory-esque villain), will be darker and more daring.
