Hellboy Review

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2005)

Hellboy falls in line with practically every other comic to movie release. It does many things good and many things bad, but in Hellboys case, the good far outdoes the bad. Having said that, I really enjoyed Hellboy and I thought that the film was extremely well done. Even the opening credits have enough flair to keep you entertained. The cast is extremely versatile with there characters and I think that the casting director did a great job in finding great actors to play the parts. The film begins during World War II. With Hitler losing ground in Europe, the war is turning to favor the Allies. Hitler, in a desperate act, decides that the world must come to an end. He hires Grigori Rasputin and others to use black magic and create a portal to hell. This will cause a chain of events that leads to the end of the world. When the U.S government finds out about this plan, they send a special force team to Germany in order to foil Hitlers plot. After the portal is opened a demon crawls out and is rescued by Trevor Bruttenholm, a scientist who joined the special forces in Germany. He raises Hellboy (Perlman), a name he called him since he was a child, to be an efficient minister of justice for all the monsters that continually manifest in the United States. One day, while on a routine mission, he discovers that Rasputin survived the ordeal more than 50 years ago and is back to once again try to bring about the end of days. This leads Hellboy on a mission to save the world, get the girl, and avenge the death of his father. Classic stuff. He is joined by his love interest Liz Sherman (Blair) who is also a freak who can set her self on fire. Together they have many tasks ahead of them, and in the end great sacrifices have to be made. I really did enjoy this movie, the direction was nice and the acting was great. There was a lot of subtle humor littered throughout the movie and that made it all the more enjoyable. However, some parts of the film really held it back. For example, the plot is very unorthodox and sometimes you're not sure what is going on. This causes some huge problems when you're trying to follow the story. Also, there are a lot of loose ends that are never really tied up, or that are never fully explained. But the entire thing put together is a worthy movie that was well directed and nicely put together.
OVERALL THOUGHTS ON HELLBOY
Entertainment: Funny and exciting. 8/10
Plot: Hard to follow at times, but still mildly interesting. 5/10
Acting: Very nice. Perlman is wildly funny and witty. 9/10
Music: Fast-paced and exciting, but a little generic 7/10
Direction: Fits the genre, very nice. 7/10
Alberts Analysis: A very good movie with strong characters that is held back by the lack of plot explanation. 7/10