Unlovable Cartoonish Figure

Rating: Null/10 (2 June 2004)

Opening on the Isle of Skye off the coast of Scotland in 1944, we observe along with GIs crouched behind a wall the machinations of a bizarrely evil Nazi force as they attempt to open a portal to the dark side. In the aftermath of a vicious firefight a small creature is found (Hellboy), the only testament to the success of the aborted experiment.
We flash forward in time and find this same grown (to some type of adulthood) being living in a techno-junkyard apartment of sorts. There he whiles away the hours waiting for calls to attend to evildoers as is the proper role of all superheroes. From this point forward he is summoned to dispatch, throughout the entire course of the film, all manner of threats to mankind.
The cartoonish Hellboy (he is cut exactly from the Hulk creature mold) is a cigar-chomping and patently ugly fellow, but nonetheless is smitten with a never-can-have beautiful girl (Liz, voice of Selma Blair) and follows the direction of Professor Bruttenholm (voice of John Hurt) in what seems to be a pretty miserable existence.
As with all superheroes, one marvels at the resilience of wise-cracking Hellboy (voice of Ron Perlman); suffering an untold number of ostensibly lethal blows, he is never slowed by any of them but later dresses superficial lacerations with great care, perhaps to show us a touch of humanity.
As diversion Hellboy holds up pretty well, primarily because the visual computer-enhanced visions (fairly murky much of the time, to give us a sense of gloom and doom) are first-rate. But if there is a message here it escapes us, and like the Hulk film storyline we are left in the final analysis with an unlovable being and we have no interest in whether he finds happiness or not.