Review of Hellboy (2004) by Blake B — 10 Aug 2010

After finally having a hit with Blade II (2002), Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro now had the opportunity to make his dream project, Hellboy, created by Mike Mignola. It was a surprise hit, and put Del Toro on the road to greater things.

It's a great, fun piece of fantasy filmmaking, with some good imagery and good action. It started with Allied American forces in 1944 discovering an infant demon which they call Hellboy (Ron Perlman), with occult specialist Professor Trevor Broom (John Hurt) becoming a father figure to this demon, who 60 years later is working for a top secret branch of the government called the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense.

When a resurrected Grigori Rasputin (Karel Roden) wrecks havoc on New York City, Hellboy along with fellow agents Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) who has pyrokinetic powers, and psychic fishlike Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) go to put a stop to Rasputin's plan, and it was Rasputin who helped bring Hellboy into the world all those years earlier, plus Hellboy doesn't do things by the book.

This is a fun and exciting action fantasy, with a brilliant lead performance by Perlman, who seems to be having the time of his life in this role. Del Toro keeps the action up and has a very good visual eye and imagination, which came to great use for his next film, Pan's Labyrinth.