Review of Hellboy (2004) by Hugh D — 13 Aug 2010

I wouldn't call this film a great, but I did find it hugely entertaining. In the same vein and territory as Ghostbusters and Men in Black (leaning more towards the former to be honest) I wouldn't really class it along with conventional 'super hero' movies. It is of course dominated by the big red presence of Ron Perlman's title-character, the bruiser with a heart of gold (hats off to Del Toro and Perlman for creating the character through physical prosthetics rather than cgi too), but there is an extremely strong supporting cast here with a suitably eccentric John Hurt, a superb combined performance of Doug Jones (physical) and David Hyde Pierce (voice) as Abe Sapien, and Jeffrey Tambor playing just below the self-important jerk line that'd have you wishing him dead.

Selma Blair is regrettably underused and Rupert Evens is really just in it as an audience avatar, but they don't really affect it enough to be a significant problem. A fairly generic 'dungeon' scene does seem a bit predictable and derivative, having echoes of Fellowship of the Ring's Moria sequence and a nod to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but on the whole there is a lot to recommend Hellboy as another eminently watchable action adventure yarn....Now i've just got to watch The Golden Army.