Obsessed With Film

Posted by James Clayton

All hail Abe Sapien! Whilst the cigar-chomping Big Red and flame-crafting Liz Sherman are undoubtedly ace, it’s nice to have Abe in the mix as a counterbalance to the smelting-and-belting lead couple of the Hellboy franchise. The aquarian intellectual adds a certain gentility and sophistication to the BPRD squad; something that is expanded upon even further in Hellboy II: The Golden Army. In this summer’s sequel to the 2004 adaptation of Mike Mignola’s brilliant comic, Abe Sapien falls in love and the audience gets to emotionally empathise with the character even more than they’d been allowed to in Hellboy where Abe had simply played sidekick. Now, longing for Princess Nuala, the telekinetically-talented Abraham takes more of a prominent place in the plot and acquires extra emotional edge as opposed to functioning primarily as a supporting character.

The scene in which the lovestruck Abe and Ron Perlman’s Big Red deliver a drunken duet of Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” is one of the funniest and frankly most touching moments ever to feature in a comic book film. Abe may be the brains of the operation to Hellboy’s brawn and Liz’s burning spirit, but with his psychometric abilities already indicating an empathetic personality, the amorous narrative of Hellboy II further indicates that he’s equal parts heart and mind. He’s a weird-looking fish-man who recalls Creature from the Black Lagoon, but you can’t help but feel for him as he deals with the difficulties of romantic devotion and is ridiculed by some dumb street heckler for wearing a “toilet seat” around his neck. Come on: it’s clearly breathing apparatus you rude, unperceptive punk. These average folk eh? No respect for the heroes who save their backside time and time again…

One of the most crucial features that makes amphibious Abe so personable, sympathetic and strikingly lovable is the fact it’s the excellent Doug “Fishstick” Jones playing him, dressed up to the gills and giving a typically strong performance under prosthetics and make-up. It’s not merely due to the fact that Jones is a master contortionist with an outstanding physical presence that Abe is so captivating: it’s also in the actor’s ability to embody compassionate character and project a persona through the prosthetics. Whether he’s playing Abe or other fantastical beings such as the Faun or the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth, Jones manages to emit an aura - an essence of life - that’s lacking in a fair few CGI-constructs. It’s in his poise and posture; the way he moves with a graceful, attention-grabbing manner that never fails to captivate and even though he’s playing ugly, the sickly figures are strangely appealing. He brings life and soul to the bizarre creatures that he inhibits and fully becomes the spectacular figures we see on screen. It’s no surprise therefore that he’s become Guillermo del Toro’s muse and go-to-guy when it comes to taking eye-boggling outlandish characters to screen.

The potential involvement of Jones in del Toro’s upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit is a tantalising prospect indeed, particularly because it presents the possibility that this phantom of phenomenal physicality will share screen space with Andy Serkis. If Doug Jones can be dubbed the Crown Prince of Prosthetics, then Serkis is the King of Motion Capture and, like Jones, excels in exuding a powerful persona and emotive depth despite being under layers of special effects. As with Jones’s many roles, Serkis’s anthropomorphic acting as the eponymous ape in King Kong carries pathos that couldn’t be realised if there weren’t an actual human providing the poses and facial expressions. Even more outstanding is his portrayal of Gollum/Smeagol in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Why bother with soulless completely computer-generated creatures when you can stick an expressive individual such as Jones or Serkis in a suit and give off so much more feeling and nuance?

With Eddie Murphy continually churning out exorbitantly unfunny, uninspired flicks based around the gimmick that the globe can’t get enough of his grinning mug (see The Nutty Professor, Meet Dave, Norbit and so on), I’d say it’s about time that Doug Jones had his own movie. Get Guillermo del Toro behind the camera and craft an epic fantasy featuring marvellous creatures all played by the contortionist. Not only would audiences get a great cathartic carnival of fascinating far-out monsters, beasts and bizarre beings but it’s also unlikely that they’d be sitting in suspense waiting for the next fart or fat person gag to be unleashed to barely a guffaw.

Doug Jones’s characters are amazing to watch and you can always rely on Guillermo del Toro to give us charmingly grotesque aesthetic spectacle, so let’s have that imaginative full-on fancy-dress fest that would bring the best of both artists. We don’t want to see more of Eddie Murphy flouncing about in a fat suit. Instead the movie-world really needs an artistic Jones vehicle that cements his status as a sort of visual-effects equivalent of Peter Sellers for this generation. Keeping Up With the Many Monstrous Joneses anyone? Get the great gangly one down to the costume and make-up trailer and greenlight this one now!

categories - Feature Articles, Guillermo-del-Toro, Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Further Reading

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