I should have seen it on the big screen.

Rating: 9/10 (11 January 2011)

I really regret not seeing Hellboy in the theater. The comic book it is based on is printed by Dark Horse Comics, a relatively small independent publisher that most people have never heard of. I flipped through the source material and was not impressed, I mean really, a demon that wants to be human, a fish guy and an out of control psychokinetic fight the things that go bump in the night, sounds really lame to me. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Hellboy is both engrossing and visually spectacular. The plot is a little more complicated to explain properly than is convenient here so I'll merely say that powerful Nazi occultists have set a plan in motion to unleash forces that will destroy the Earth and it is up to the bizarre collection of unlikely heroes at the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense to stop them. Nazis are great villains, nobody ever doubts their sheer capacity for evil, add the fact that they are chaos worshiping occultists and you have some truly diabolical foes.
Ron Pearlman is fantastic as Hellboy, who is, much like Vincent from Beauty and the Beast, a misunderstood monster that wishes, more than anything, to fit in and be normal. To facilitate this he grinds down his horns in order to look more human. Of course a seven foot tall, 500 pound, red skinned, stone fisted demon with a tail won't appear human under any circumstances but this small bit of silliness underscores a tender side to the often gruff and rebellious Hellboy. It's small details like these that make the movie so enjoyable to watch, like little Easter eggs, each revealing a little secret about the strange creatures before us. I was very pleasantly surprised by Hellboy, and you will be too.