Minor Demon

Rating: Null/10 (18 April 2004)

"Hellboy" may not be hell, or even purgatory, to sit through, but neither is it particularly spectacular. Stories about a team of (frequently misfit) heroes who save the world from unthinkable evil are a dime a dozen, and Guillermo del Toro's comic-book based movie never really distinguishes itself from the crowd.
But if the ride is a forgettable one, at least the driver is interesting. Hellboy (Ron Perlman) comes to our world in the closing months of World War II, thanks to an aborted attempt by the Nazis to open a portal allowing Ancient and Terrible Evil to arrive and bring about Armageddon. He gets taken in by the Allies, and eventually grows into a hulking creature that sort of looks like a cross between Wolverine and the villian in "Legend." Sixty years later, he's part of a secret government organization helping stamp out paranormal fires, and a bit of an urban legend on the side. Perlman, despite being hidden behind heavy (and pretty good) makeup, does a good job striking a balance between Hellboy's destructive, demonic nature, and the tenderer emotions nurtured by his upbringing on the side of light. He is, for lack of a better term, the film's most human presence.
The balance of the plot involves the machinations of Rasputin (Karel Rodin)--yes, that Rasputin. He was in charge of the Nazi portal sixty years ago, and is looking to finish the job. His henchmen consist of a creepy blade-wielding assassin, and a femme fatale who seems to be in the film because directors love seeing an Aryan woman walking around in stormtrooper chic. Hellboy's allies include surrogate father Professor Broom (John Hurt) aquatic intellectual and empath Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, voice by an uncredited David Hyde Pierce), sad-eyed pyrokinetic Liz (Selma Blair), and token normal guy John (Rupert Evans). Unfortunately, none of these come close to matching the title character for depth and personality, and so the film tends to drag when Hellboy isn't around. Abe and Liz, in particular, are promising characters who could easily be expanded on (the latter is Hellboy's love interest, convenient as he's fireproof and she has a tendency to burst into flame when excited). But they are given short shrift by a script that sometimes feels like a loose string of fight scenes, many of which involve nearly-indestructible creatures that look like the offspring of Alien and Predator. These scenes are generally well-constructed and occasionally contain some impressive moments (I liked the battle in the subway station). But when you've seen one huge, tentacled evil, you've seen them all. And `Hellboy' would have been a lot more fun to watch if he'd had some opponents-or even some friends, for that matter-who could hold the screen as well as he does.