Pointless

Rating: 1/10 (28 February 2015)

At best, "Hellboy" is somewhat, but not very, enjoyable; the creature designs, practical effects, make-up and visuals (minus the terrible CGI) are all impressive. The action sequences, however, are poorly orchestrated, and never implement a real sense of suspense or incite excitement, especially when they rely heavily on Perlman's delivery of one liners to a monster he fights over and over again, just in different settings.
Looking for a plot? Well, how about a monster fight instead? Would you like that?! The story we're meant to follow is extremely vague, so much so that the film just feels like a mish-mash of scenes, especially with the flawed pacing. Despite the painfully obvious exposition at times in the dialogue, there is actually little to no explanation behind the events of the movie, little motives behind characters and antagonists. Everything seems so underdeveloped that it is difficult to see what this film is getting at. It's like a 9 yr old trying to give advice, you know? Numerous moments require a great deal of suspension of disbelief and these moments are just too hard to overlook.
The tone of the film is quite varied too; just when the film quietens down and is serious, we think we may finally get to learn something about the characters and come to appreciate them but we are then thrown back into the extremely ambiguous plot or into another fight scene and too many of these moments come across as corny, largely due to the fact that we have no idea what is going on and what exactly to think of the characters as, as I have mentioned above, the lack of development makes it difficult to care for what is occurring on screen.
Perhaps back in 2004, when this film was first released, it was appreciated and I could just about see why but 11 years later and it really does not seem to hold up. I find the current rating on IMDb to be very misleading. The ratings for its sequel, which I have yet to view, are significantly higher but I hope the scores are more representative. I really wish I could get my 2 hours back watching this film.
"Hellboy" is undeniably as pointless as Hellboy's horns. Don't waste your time with this film.