Cute Laughs Amidst the Special Effects

Rating: Null/10 (3 April 2004)

"Hellboy" is a cute entertainment with expensive special effects, including elaborate underground bunkers on several continents, as befits the attention of a writer/director, Guillermo del Toro, who started his career in the make-up/effects departments.
Though stuck in a complicated Nazi-creation myth out of "Indiana Jones," the funny and snappy dialogue seems to take a lot of its attitude from the Joss Whedon universe of "Buffy the Vampire Killer" and particularly from "Angel, " but lacks the depth and poignancy of both
The romance ironically recalls "Beauty and the Beast," as the titular tormented hero of both is played by Ron Perlman.
Selma Blair, usually the goody goody, is surprisingly effective as a Goth-like freak who seems to be guesting from the "X Men" series. In a twist, the ingenue here is a guy, Rupert Evans, who the empathic freak, speaking in David Hyde Pierce's voice, identifies as truly "pure of heart."

While I liked the conceit that each time the monster is killed it replicates from the ashes, it looks recycled from "The Matrix Revolutions," but down in the subway instead of outer space.
The score matches the action and the snatches of songs are atypical for the genre, including Tom Waits.