Hellboy

PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 4/02/2004)

In Hellboy, an unholy fusion of comic-book camp, Dolby-enhanced action, and Indiana Jones-type quasi-historic adventure, an undead Russian mystic attempt to bring about the apocalypse by letting loose various supernatural monsters; our hero kicks some ass; things blow up. Loudly. Thanks to the singular vision of director Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola’s gloriously dark source material, Hellboy is a wicked trip into the fantastic.

Few films can claim the seven-foot-tall, bright-red spawn of Satan as a hero, much less one who bears more resemblance to the twenty-something slackers in Swingers than any of Ah-nuld’s humorless action behemoths. Underneath all the latex (Rick Baker’s prosthetics are quite simply astounding), Ron Perlman plays Hellboy as an ironic everyguy, albeit one with horns, a tail, and a massive right hand made of stone. He deserves a livelier sparring partner than Selma Blair’s wan Liz Sherman, who’s only interesting when going all Joan of Arc on several slavering beasts and torching their underground lair. John Hurt follows in Patrick Stewart’s well-trod groove, bringing some classically trained gravitas to the proceedings as Hellboy’s father and mentor, and David Hyde Pierce voices his amphibian sidekick, Abe Sapien, with dry (no pun intended) humor and wit. Newcomer Rupert Evans plays the newbie through whose eyes we see these freaky goings-on, FBI Agent John Myers, with an appealing combination of naivete and skepticism.

Yet del Toro’s exquisitely realized vision for the film dominates it, superseding the rather thinly drawn plot and the limitations of character imposed by the comic-book-adaptation angle. Visually, the film is stunning, all gloomy blacks, Telltale Heart reds, and achingly frigid whites and blues. If the film’s love triangle feels a little silly and the arch-villains a little over the top, it’s all secondary to del Toro’s passionate immersion in Hellboy.

—Sara Brady