Watching this is like a cross between an X-Men film and watching a true expert play a 'beat 'em up' computer game against a feeble, first timer opponent.

Rating: 6/10 (28 September 2007)

At a time when the majority of films are comic book, action adventure adaptation films; I doubt we needed another CGI laden superhero film that had villains after world domination and a seemingly indestructible protagonist who is clearly the only match for whatever villainy the film can cook up. Hellboy is a nice to look at action film that never takes itself too seriously yet embodies several tired and familiar routines to keep it running. These include the old anti-hero persona that Hellboy (Perlman) carries with him throughout, the way the characters in the film are practically non-existent except for Hellboy and the main enemy and the fact the film sometimes contradicts itself regarding its ideas.
In essence; Hellboy feels like a poor man's 'Men in Black'. It carries all the action and humour of the first Men in Black film, it copies Men in Black's use of a 'fish out of water' technique but the character of John Myers (Evans) is the character here and he's partnered up with Hellboy just like Agent Jay was with Agent Kay. The difference here is that Myers is sort of assigned to 'baby-sit' Hellboy because Hellboy needs his meals and needs to be kept out of public view but by half way through the film, Hellboy has had so much public exposure that his secret is out and nobody seems to care; rendering Myers useless after about forty minutes of the film whereas Agent Jay was Kay's partner throughout and was dealing with aliens and clearing up the mess wherever needed. I thought that Hellboy should've taken the approach Men in Black did and have these two people get into their own adventures but Myers is built up at the beginning as someone important and as someone who will have an impact on the film and Hellboy's adventures  in the end, he was just unnecessary.
I was not moved by Hellboy and was not impressed with any deeper, more technical things. The film is shallow and rather poorly structured with the supporting characters consisting of human beings wielding machine guns and wearing suits (another 'should-be' Men in Black reference?). They are supposed to defeat the other type of character: CGI created fish-like monsters who are clearly no match for the human beings yet it is decided they do battle anyway. Other than this, there is just no conflict in the film. Everyone is weak except for Hellboy and a Nazi demon-like character who for some reason knows a mixture of kung-fu and how to use knifes and daggers like a Samurai  not particularly accurate. The reason there's no conflict is because whenever an enemy goes up against a human being, we know who will win; like-wise whenever Hellboy goes up against anything, we know who will win. There are also too many one-on-one fights that are too one-sided - meaning they play out like a fox battling an injured chicken.
I'd say that Hellboy is perhaps a 'fun' film but maybe I watched it with my brain turned on a little too much. There is enough material to structure something clever: A Nazi experiment goes wrong, a demon enters our world and there are numerous other monsters it can do battle with. I felt that if Hellboy and the allies had another character who was equally as strong as Hellboy was, it might have been interesting. The character of Liz Sherman (Blair) is introduced and fits this character but she comes in far too late. The fish-like character of Abe Sapien (Jones) was there from the beginning but he was perceived as quite weak. Also, there are too many one sided duels throughout the film that just make it another CGI, comic book film that goes through the motions, has the showdown at the temple/castle or whatever and then kills itself off with a twist of fate or an individual act of genius from the hero. Hellboy is not a particularly good film but will entertain on a basic level although there are better films that do this; namely Men in Black.