Would love to love it but honestly, it's weak kiddie-fare

Rating: Null/10 (13 April 2004)

As I am going to trash Hellboy, I feel very sorry, sorrier than I was when I left the theater contemplating all the potential squandered on that film.

I love Ron Perlman. He shines even in his cameo performances. Blade II was fast, fun, and violent, so del Toro should have had no trouble delivering something along those lines. I love comics. I never read Hellboy admittedly but it's safe to say I was willing to give Hellboy all the chances I could possibly given it.
But ugh. The script is awful, cheesy, full of cliches and a kiddie morality/philosophy towards life. "Just tell her how you feel" - I nearly puked over that line. Selma Blair portrays a one-dimensional introvert/emotionally distraught pyrokinetic, Rupert Evans is the most unimposing CIA agent you ever saw, Ron Perlman can't save his character from horrifically bad one-liners, and the short-list of minor characters is composed of the most incompetent government agents ever seen in the big screen. It's painfully obvious no one recruited any technical advisors from the CIA or FBI to instruct how an actual paranormal agency might work (Especially when it's staffed by idiots like the director who whines the audience to the death about how HE'S IN CHARGE, NOT HELLBOY *yawn*).

My attitude towards the characters was totally unsympathetic. Too little character development and what little of it is there comes through their (not-so-)witty repartee and jests about death, combat, anonymity.

The action is sub-standard. Blade II pumped adrenaline through my veins (thanks in part to Donnie Yen's choreography) but also Perlman's excellent facial expressions and physical tics in his Reinhart character. Hellboy is watered-down action and one hell of a CGI light show. Most tiring are the lazy and gaping plotholes (traffic rushes past a pedestrian in the center divider as if he's not there), while del Toro pulls the typical the old "hero-says-something-witty-while-monster-sneaks-up-behind-him-in-the-dark" trick a half-dozen times too many.
It's a messy plot no one can understand, about nazis and the occult and little demon children who look like the mascots on plague remover commercials.
I left that theater smashed with disappointment. Most of the budget was obviously spent on special effects, while no thought was given to the characters or the plot (EX: Supersecret paranormal agency allows director to operate on a paranormal corpse without supervision or adequate security [since paranormal corpses have a habit of jumping to kill people at tension-building points in the movie]). It had all the ingredients of a winning movie but someone got out of control with the special effects, and it's pretty obvious no one cared about the rest of the film.
If you're 14 or younger, you may like this film, otherwise you may find yourself wishing you'd waited for something better. Hellboy is a PG-13 film treading on PG ground, subject matter elementary enough to be suitable only for children, not for people hungering for more than just a lame story about a life-and-death struggle between the forces of the costume department (hellboy) and the computer animated flunkies.