lick visuals, creative character designs and plenty of personality all add up to a solid action movie in Hellboy, the latest comic-book adaptation to hit the big screen. The movie falters somewhat, though, by straying from what makes it work: its sense of fun, allowing a more sombre tone to infiltrate the story.
In an attempt to win World War II, Nazis summon an infant demon who is quickly befriended and adopted by an Allied paranormal scientist. That devilish child -- named Hellboy by U.S. soldiers -- grows up to become the top agent in a secret U.S. government agency dedicated to destroying supernatural threats. Hellboy (Ron Perlman) is joined by other freaks -- the amphibious Abe Sapien (voiced by David Hyde Pierce) and firestarter Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) -- in an effort to save the world from the Apocalypse.
Perlman is perhaps best known for his title role in TV's Beauty and the Beast back in the 1980s. Don't expect to find the eloquent purveyor of purple prose he was back then. Perlman has since carved out a reputation for portraying characters with rough edges (see Blade 2 and Alien: Resurrection for proof), and that certainly holds true in Hellboy as well. The actor brings a blue-collar, everyman quality to the demonic title character of the film, and in the process, he brings the fearsome figure down to earth. It's surprisingly easy to relate to the infernal character here. The audience can see themselves in his romantic frustrations and his clashes with a father figure.
Frasier's David Hyde Pierce brings an odd mix of stoicism and playful sarcasm to the character of fish-man Abe Sapien. Actor Doug Jones may handle the physicality of the part, but Pierce's voice grants the character his humanity. The visuals throughout the movie are dynamic and awe-inspiring. Director Guillermo del Toro captured the dark, gothic look of creator Mike Mignola's art perfectly while leaving the stiffness of static pencil linework behind.
Yes, this is a comic-book movie, it boasts the same kind of awkward plotting one comes to expect from the genre. That's not a problem, though, as this kind of movie is about characters and cool visuals. Where the movie does go astray is by getting sullen. Selma Blair does a fine job in bringing the disturbed and haunted Liz Sherman to life, but the character proves to be a real downer when she takes a more active role later in the movie. Another key event in the latter half of the flick reinforces that melancholy air.
The filmmakers also try to include a conflict from within the side of the good guys in the form of Jeffrey Tambor's character, an FBI bigwig who hates Hellboy and his freakish friends. The storyline fizzles, and a brief scene in the middle of the end credits seems to acknowledge that the storytellers just didn't know what to do with the character. Furthermore, Abe Sapien all but disappears from the movie in the second half, and his absence is definitely felt.
Still, Hellboy offers action-movie fans something all too rare in films these days: the sense one has experienced something new and different. It's definitely worth seeing on the big screen, despite its stumbles in the second half.
