Why 2004’s Hellboy is classic viewing

The remake that is better than the original is the rarest unicorn in all of filmdom. For the record, I think David Fincher’s version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, is a better film than the Swedish original. I also rate the

American Let Me In, with Chloe Grace Moretz and Richard Jenkins, as better, in some ways, than the (also Swedish) Let The Right One In.

And not many people will argue that Martin Scorsese’s The Departed isn’t a better film than the Hong Kong crime-thriller Infernal Affairs on which it is based. But after that, for the last decade at least, the pickings grow pretty slim.

For example, Neil Marshall’s mostly wretched attempt at relaunching Hellboy sure isn’t going to on anyone’s list of remakes worth watching.

That the film is a bomb of epic proportions is common knowledge, but it is instructive to at least ask what went wrong.

Firstly, the original 2004 film is still well-remembered and mostly loved by everyone who has seen it. It’s my favourite superhero origin film of all time. There’s a freshness and goofiness about Hellboy that defies the precision and exactitude of Guillermo del Toro’s direction. Del Toro eventually got his Oscar for The Shape of Water, but I say Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth are both better and moreambitious.

Comic-book adaptations seldom get the respect they deserve from the critics and judges, but 15 years after it was released, Hellboy is still top of my go-to pile when I just want to watch something I know will never fail to entertain me.

And as for casting anyone but Ron Perlman as everyone’s favourite demon/bloke hybrid? Fugeddaboutit. As soon as del Toro and Perlman dropped out of the project, it should have been canned. Neil Marshall seemed like a great choice, but the truth is, Marshall has made steadily less-interesting films as his budgets have grown.

Far better – and more in keeping with the title of this column – there’s a stunning little doco fairly new to Netflix that is well worth watching in this age of fake news. Behind the Curve – even the title is a droll joke – is a look inside the world of flat-earth believers.

Debutant director Daniel Clark never interrupts his interviewees, he just calmly lets the – mostly – very likeable believers have their say. A nice selection of psychologists and – actual – scientists are restrained, witty and insightful in reply.

The parallels between the extreme delusions of the flatearthers and the nonsense and conspiracy theories we wearily expect to be exposed to every day in our news feeds are all too obvious.

Behind the Curve is funny as hell, with a killer ending. It also has something important to say.