Good popcorn movie, but that's about it.

Rating: 5/10 (2 July 2004)

HellBoy
The story about a demon, brought back to hell to serve the evil, but ended up serving the good. Approx 60 years after HellBoy was brought back, the former evil mastermind, Rasputin, returns once again to bring doom over the earth, only one man can stop him, Hellboy.
Over the lasts years the new hype are superhero comic book adaptions to the screen, some of these have failed, some have been very good like X-Men 1/2 and Spider-Man 1/2. Here comes HellBoy, and obviously the expectations are high, and I got to admit, the movie fell through for me, I'm not saying it was the worst one ever, but it never really got to me, a true popcorn movie, 2 hours to unlock the brain and watch the screen.
I'm not going to lie, I prefer movies that takes some brain work, some deep movies where you can really get under the skin of the persons, of figure out the plot. This movie succeeds in neither, it's both a bit hollow, and the characters - except a few moments with Hellboy - feels pretty empty, furthermore the attempt to bring personal situations to the superhero world of Hellboy fails badly, the chemistry between HellBoy and "Liz" (Starring Selma Blair) works not too well, and generally I just thought that Selma Blair felt very miscast in this role.
This movie is generally what I would categorize as a "Popcorn" flick, not to much brain work, but a lot of action and very often use of CGI and other similar effects, this at times feels a little like an effect war, even though much of it is well done, I can't help myself thinking that it's all effects, one of the things I liked was how obvious it was that a person was playing "Blue", instead of that being a CGI character.
The direction of the movie is okay, the action scenes are smoothly done, even though I hate the classic element of "A beats B, B beats A, A beats B, B beats A, A beats B and win.", That element is often used here, and it's kind of sad, it feels like the movie drags out a bit, it could have used the sparetime by personalizing more with the characters, anyway the action scenes are easy to follow and not confusing, well done and pretty entertaining, especially since they destroy everything around them, and I did find myself cheer for HellBoy, even though I knew he was gonna win anyway eventually. The future sight of "The Apocalypse" were the best 10 seconds of the film, a powerful sight, that may one day be even more realistic with the nuclear weapons etc. man possesses today, perhaps a hidden message here? Especially the sight of the newspaper were well done.
Sadly I think the director avoids the downsides of being a hero and all that, a downside that X-Men and Spider-Men portrays so well. There are a few moments of the film where the director tries to point it out, an example is the awkward scene between HellBoy and Liz in his room where he tells her that he wishes he could get rid of his looks and be normal, but he can't, a good promising moment there, but after that, it fades into the background and is not taken up again, unfortunately.
There is no doubt that Ron Perlman is the powerful Hellboy, also a terrific performance for him, and his good humour fits the character well, all the other characters and actors in the movie falls through swiftly, some are average performances, like Rupert Evans as the FBI agent, not a bad performance, but perhaps not really many chances for him to show some good sides. As mentioned I found Selma Blair pretty poor in this role, and well that generally went for much of the cast, even though I must admit the FBI chief I hated, but in the end he got portrayed as a pathetic character suddenly socializing with HellBoy, not too well done.
Overall: A true popcorn movie, nothing less, nothing more, it had more potential, but fails to take use of it. If you feel like unlocking your brain for 2 hours, HellBoy won't let you down.
5/10