Fantastic movie that I'd recommend without reservation to the strong of stomach!

Rating: 10/10 (3 April 2004)

I thought that this movie was absolutely brilliant. It was also supremely enjoyable. The whole thing was very exciting, as well as amusing and just entertaining. Any fan of the action genre should love this movie, as well as people who just want a good time at the movies. The only people who I would say should avoid this movie are the very faint of heart, as there were a couple parts that I found to be too much for me. However, it is a testament to the film that I plan to go and see it again and again, even though there are parts that have been giving me the heebie-jeebies (and I'll admit that I'm a bit of a wimp about some things).
I'm a huge fan of the comic, and normally in an adaptation like this, any deviation from canon drives me completely wild. But when I saw the movie, absolutely nothing bothered me at all, because it all worked so well for the movie. Everything was just exceptionally well done. It was faithful to the original without sacrificing the movie at all.
All the acting and the characters were also wonderful. While I missed tough-guy Abe from the comics, psychic Abe was loveable as well, and worked perfectly as a foil to Hellboy. Ron Perlman was unbelievable as Hellboy. It quite literally is hard for me to believe that someone could get so close to the character!
I loved the dialogue and the plot and the emotional aspects of the film as well. One-liners tend to crack me up, and these had enough of HB's dry matter of fact- ness to stop from being the extremely corny lines that you often find, that are out of place and make me wince. I guess Hellboy's personality is well adapted to one-liners.
The movie was a lot of fun to watch, and an excellent realization of the story.