Visual elegance, lame plot and pacing

Rating: 4/10 (25 May 2004)

Hellboy's a real pity: a strong cast and beautifully designed visual environment are wasted with a doofy script and lazy characterization. Ron Perlman's Hellboy -- and, in casting terms, Perlman's the perfect choice -- is unleashed upon the movie without depth, idiosyncrasy or soul, and forced to spend twenty minutes at a time pummelling large voiceless CGI dogs. It's a waste of the lovely work done by the visual designers, who beautifully render a steampunkish detective lair; sinister Nazi-era villains; and the delicately amphibious Abe Sapien. The greater shame is that the source material, Mike Mignola's comic, is a work of dry elegance and understated wit. Try it if you're interested in seeing what would happen if this world and its characters were allowed to run a little deeper.