Good Special Effects, but Limited Character and Story Development

Rating: 4/10 (14 August 2004)

I'd been looking forward to seeing Hellboy, based on the publicity. I've enjoyed several graphic novels and/or books based upon them. The best of the movies, like Spiderman, the first Superman with Christopher Reeves, the first Batman, X-men, and even the Hulk, successfully capture the wonder and mood that made each comic popular. In the best comic films, newcomers to the story are drawn into the world of that hero and the particular themes that make him or her resonate. (Wonder Woman movie, please!) I didn't have that experience with the hellishly boring Hellboy, and perhaps that is due to its lesser fame. Many people have a basic knowledge of Superman, for example, and that familiarity can make identifying with the characters easier.
Unevenly paced and unbalanced in tone, Hellboy evokes a team of writers struggling to condense a potentially complicated story world into something brief and manageable. It's possible; Peter Jackson did it in Lord of the Rings. Hellboy just didn't work. The characters were sketches, identifiable by one sentence tags, and it was a shame, because it seems like they might have interesting stories from the comics---too bad you don't get that nuance in the actual film. Ron Perlman invests Hellboy with a lot of presence and charisma, but that's a tribute to the actor rather than the dialogue. Rupert Evans was likable, but under utilized. It would have been nice to see Selma Blair as something more than the obligatory love object. Though the FX looked fine, the action scenes seemed strangely boring and random, with major characters being disposed of in anti-climactic manner. Even the villains were disposable and easily dispatched. A very quick "kill the boss-monster" ending only increased the movie's feel of being something rushed and underdeveloped.