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From visionary writer/director Guillermo del Toro (Blade II, The Devil's Backbone) comes Hellboy, a supernatural action adventure based on Mike Mignola's popular Dark Horse Comics series of the same name. Born in the flames of hell and brought to Earth as an infant to perpetrate evil, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) was rescued from sinister forces by the benevolent Dr. Broom (John Hurt), who raised him to be a hero.
In Dr. Broom's secret Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, Hellboy creates an unlikely family consisting of the telepathic "Mer-Man" Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), the woman he loves who can control fire.
Hidden from the very society that they protect, they stand as the key line of defense against an evil madman who seeks to reclaim Hellboy to the dark side and use his powers to destroy mankind.
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Review by: wheeled thing
Dated: 14th of August, 2004
I also was looking forward to this movie, mainly because the trailers that were shown for it were pretty good. Unfortunately, I was soon to find out that, as usual, they had taken the best-of-the-best-bits and stuck them together to impress.
Unlike the previous reviewer, I didn't have any knowledge of the Dark Horse comic character, have never read any H.P. Lovecraft, so don't know who this 'Cthullu' guy is.
As a special effects movie it was fairly good, but not quite good enough to stop the storyline from falling flat during the middle third of the movie.
I was really looking forward to adding this movie to my DVD collection, and may still, but only if it happens to be on sale.
Needless to say not too impressed really.
Review by: kiwireviewer-00
Dated: 12th of August, 2004
Ah, the mysterious agency that has the sole purpose of over-hyping things to make us part with our hard-earned cash has been at work again, this time on the 'Hellboy' project.
I was dead-keen to go see this movie, after hearing amazing things about the Dark Horse comic of the same name, and seeing some truely stunning trailers.
So, after a last-minute dash to arrange transport for the group of us, and some not-so-nice dealings with the cinema attendant who had issues with us complaining about their proceedures for dealing with reserved seats for caregivers of wheelchair-bound patrons, we sat down and waited through the adverts.
The movie, well, I'm not going to give away any of the plot, but I shall make some comments on it... firstly, it strongly reminded me of H.P. Lovecrafts "Cthullu" stories. This is not too surprising, since there are some uncanny connections between Lovecraft's works and the efforts of the Nazi's secret dark-magic research teams during WW1. All too similar in the wrong ways.
There are some continuity errors in the movie, such as one scene where they obviously flipped the film over so Hellboy walked into the room with his stone hand on the wrong arm (Oh so stupid, people), and the final scene raises some questions about the resurrection abilities of a nasty critter.
Overall... the score says it all. It was an OK movie, yet another Special Effects hit, but the storyline just felt flat. There's no other way to describe it.
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