Great visual style, but story falls short

Rating: Null/10 (7 April 2004)

Hollywood seems to have a very specific desired outcome when it comes to producing comic book movies: to maintain the compelling visual style that makes the comic medium stand out in the first place and to tweak the story just enough to make a mainstream audience care.
This is, in essence, what happened with Hellboy. Don't get me wrong: I loved the film. The humor wasn't over the top, the visual style and set design was fantastic, and the performances were way better than I expected. My only complaints came from parts of the story that I had failed to ever find in the comics.
I understand that the jump from one medium to another will inevitably produce plot twists that die-hard fans won't recognize and, therefore, won't approve of, but Hellboy took this fact to the edge of my tolerance.
Though I could go on for days about discrepancies about horns, candy bars, and everyone's respective loyalties, the only one worth really complaining about is the love story aspect. I know Hollywood understands its audiences and audiences inevitably will want a love story to keep them interested (and make the film a potential "date movie"), but this was a little over the top.
Whether it was the unfounded "romance" between Rasputin and Ilsa, the disgusting love triangle that distracted the characters from the more important parts of the film (such as, oh I don't know, stopping the approaching end of the world...), Hellboy's momentary "for her" jump to the dark side, or the stomach-turning final kiss between the main characters (just because the characters are fireproof doesn't mean there clothes are... hmmm), I was befuddled by the scripts desperate attempts at romantic shmultz.
Overall, great cinematic experience, but I think the filmmakers forfeited the true focus of the story (fighting the forces of evil with the forces of diet-evil) for a couple cheap romantic thrills.