In the final days of World War II, the Nazis attempt to use black magic to aid their dying cause. The Allies raid the camp where the ceremony is taking place, but not before a demon - Hellboy - has...
“Hellboy” is a stew that blends superheroes with the supernatural. It’s based on a comic book written by Mike Mignola in the early 1990s and adapted to the screen here by Guillermo del Toro, the only person who can make such a stew actually quite good in more ways than one. It gets by pretty cleverly in the first two acts, but what does bog it down ultimately is really just how (admittedly) obnoxious its entire premise is; that being said, major props to del Toro for making something like this even remotely functional.
Hellboy (who, I think, is…Satan?) is played by an extremely-jacked Ron Perlman; he’s found in the heat of World War II as the Nazis attempt to summon the “Gods of Chaos” through a portal. He’s taken in by Dr. Bloom (John Hurt) who raises him like a son. Hellboy, aging much slower than regular humans, becomes a monster-hunter for the government; his inhuman strength and knowledge of the invisible realm makes him a perfect weapon against the mystic forces that threaten the earth’s inhabitants. This crazy plot is based on a whole lot of supernatural myths and legends, but del Toro doesn’t really give us a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo because he knows it’s hard enough to accept the premise he’s presenting. For example, Hellboy’s weapons include a crucifix and some bullets carrying the bones of dead saints; the film treats those relics like mere easter-eggs and doesn’t expand on how they actually work as weapons; abstaining from these explanations really slims down an otherwise overwhelming premise.
Perlman is so great in the titular role — who knew someone could make the spawn of hell seem so human? You can’t really get a more tough hero than the rebellious, cigar-smoking, monster hunter that Hellboy is. And yet, Perlman makes his emotionally vulnerable moments, well, believable. Hellboy is hopelessly in love with Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), a pyrokinetic confined to an asylum after it becomes clear that she cannot control her powers. She’s a really mysterious character whose thoughts we can never fully understand, and this isn’t helped too much by Blair’s underwhelming performance. Whenever Hellboy and Liz are together (which, you’d think, would be more often than it is), the scene is crying out for Blair to step up to the same level of vulnerability Perlman gives his character.
For action involving monsters, demons, and a surgery addict, “Hellboy” is not just surprisingly easy to keep up with, but pretty fun to watch. With an abundance of quips, we never lose Hellboy’s smug personality even as monster brains spill out onto him. If there’s one thing that is lost, however, its the massive energy it had as we reach the heart of the film. Not only does the pace dwindle, but there comes an awkwardly-placed challenge to HB and Liz’s relationship that just seems abrupt and out of place; once at the final set piece, del Toro seemed to have run out of ideas as the finale stumbles to end with a flourish. Indeed, the best part of this last sequence is the beautiful final shot of our heroes engaged in a victory kiss — that shot is a microcosm of the entire movie: it should not work at all (it should actually be quite unsettling), but it shows us how something so bizzare can actually be quite impactful.
