At The Movies: Pharrell Williams’ exuberant biopic Piece By Piece, Hellboy’s faithful reboot

Piece By Piece (PG)

95 minutes, opens exclusively at The Projector on Dec 12

★★★☆☆

The story: The life and career of American rapper-songwriter-producer-entrepreneur Pharrell Williams are reconstructed in Lego animation.

Batman may have been the first celebrity with a Lego movie, but his did not boast the hip-hop powerhouses Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Missy Elliott plus pop star Justin Timberlake: all these Williams collaborators and Williams himself appearing in Piece By Piece as Lego mini-figures.

The director-cum-co-writer is Best Documentary Academy Award-winner Morgan Neville of 20 Feet From Stardom (2013), a tribute to backup singers. And he, too, is here a colourful plastic human brick, sitting down to interview Williams for this whimsical animated biographical documentary of the 51-year-old’s rise from his humble beginnings in 1980s Virginia to the chart-shaking 2013 hits Happy and Get Lucky.

It is a rote show-business biopic story, an authorised one co-produced by Williams that says nothing unflattering other than he briefly lost focus, venturing into skincare, fragrance and fashion.

No mention of how his libidinous party jam Blurred Lines became in 2013 the most controversial song of the decade.

He started out as one-half of the recording duo The Neptunes, but there is no acknowledgement either of his legal dispute with childhood partner Chad Hugo.

His cartoon comedy wants only to be an inspirational blast of sunny positivity. And if it is slick and shallow, it is also humorous, inventive and super cute.

The genre-spanning artiste has likened his creative act to Lego play, assembling from eclectic disciplines and, along the way, building himself up into a mega brand truly like the toy giant. The memoir is a clever fit of form and subject.

Hot take: This musical fantasia is an exuberant block party.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man (NC16)

99 minutes, opens on Dec 12

★★★☆☆

The story: Hellboy (Jack Kesy) and a rookie (Adeline Rudolph) from the United States Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense are escorting a monster spider when their train derails, stranding them in a 1950s Appalachia haunted by the Crooked Man (Martin Bassindale). Comics cognoscenti will know this antagonist to be the devil’s minion, back on earth to harvest souls.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man is the fourth live-action adaptation of the Dark Horse Comics series after Guillermo del Toro’s popular Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), both starring Ron Perlman, and a 2019 reboot starring David Harbour that no one remembers.

At US$20 million (S$26.8 million), it has the lowest budget, but it is the most faithful.

Hellboy creator Mike Mignola himself co-scripted from his 2008 graphic novella of the same title, and he restores the fantasy horror to its American gothic origins with a creepy vibe money cannot fake, plus a suitably gruff hero in little-known American actor Kesy.

The two agents wander the woods, crossing paths with war veteran Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White), whose one-time sweetheart (Hannah Margetson) has taken the form of a raccoon.

The local rural community is wholly in the grip of witchcraft, not only she. Tom’s father will transform into a horse and the Crooked Man into a crow.

Director Brian Taylor’s (Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance, 2011) muddy storytelling has sufficient compensating moments of such Lovecraftian madness, as well as zombie action and Crooked Man acolyte Effie Kolb (Leah McNamara) going over the top.

And it is unresolved mummy issues Hellboy must ultimately vanquish in his climactic encounter with his late mother.

Hot take: Not every superhero adventure has to be a mega-dollar bloat. Here is a B-movie true to the spirit of its source material.