This
is a well-researched, fact-based drama about Hellboy, the man who is a
supernatural superhero, starring Ron Perlman and directed by Guillermo del
Toro. The film is based on the Dark Horse Comics work Hellboy: Seed of
Destruction by Mike Mignola.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
already been conjured. Joining the Allied forces, Hellboy eventually grows to
adulthood, serving the cause of good rather than evil.
The challenge for the director is to present the big red hunk as a
believable part of the real world, and here del Toro goes against the
prevailing wisdom (cf: Hulk) that such characters can be realised only with
CGI. Though perspective tricks are used to make the full-grown Hellboy tower
over regular humans, he is almost entirely a physical presence -first found in
a lair surrounded by pussycats and food, with the rasping sound of Tom Waits'
'Heart Attack and Vine' mixed in as a character touchstone.
But
the best thing about the film is that it successfully challenges. Hellboy is superb in the several action scenes, and
we get as many locations for skirmishes as levels in a videogame: a museum of
antiquities, a funfair at Halloween, the New York subway and an impressive
world of traps and dungeons under Rasputin's supposed tomb outside Moscow. But
it's to Perlman's credit that Hellboy works as well in the wry comedy moments
and the temptation sequence when his horns regrow (with a flaming crown
floating between them) and he has a vision of the position he might hold as a
master of a ravaged world.
What’s
missing, however, is that Del Toro isn't always attentive to coherent
transitions while warp-speeding through his storyline. Worse, he occasionally
neglects to prepare uninitiated auds with context from the comic books.
The
film ends with a good win over evil. Hellboy does not return
to the dark side.
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