Review: Hellboy

When I wrote the schedule for SuperSundays, I regretted not being able to review Hellboy and Fantastic Four. I felt that I needed instead to cover Superman, Spiderman and Batman, by far the three biggest Superheroes in fiction. First, I review Hellboy.
     The titular character (Ron Perlman under heavy makeup) is a devil from Hell, who escaped as a child through a dimension-gate opened by para-normal obsessed Nazis (aided by the immortal Rasputin) in rural Scotland at the height of the Second World War. Adopted by the proffessor (I can't remember his name, so hereon he's John Hurt), he grows up to be part of an elite paranormal group that fights other demonic creatures. Yes, this thing is epic. Introduced to this team is John Myers, an FBI agent asigned to "look after" Hellboy after repeated public sightings. He's the audience proxy, of course.
     The nature of the comic means that the colours and designs are very cartoonish, and the characterisations and ideas serve to lay a childish bed for the film to lay in. But somewhere just under the surface lies a complexity that outshines its simple nature. The film's structure doesn't help - it spends half-an-hour throwing background at the viewer, then serves up a few excellent action scenes before settling down and churning a mixture of the two. The film is good at each different tone, but it doesn't flow very well between them.
      Ultimately, director Guillermo del Toro has done very well to match the comic's style and colour scheme, as well as its general themes, but in some places adapting the comic-based slapstick is a little weak. Otherwise, the camerawork is fine. The film's other main issue is that when the focus isn't on the paranormal/scientific, it's relationship based, and the script doesn't do well to make us empathise with Hellboy.
    In summary, Hellboy is a fun demonic romp that while sometimes being cartoonish and over-the top with it's mythology, actually has some very strong moments and is overall quite powerful and thoughtful. It just needed that little bit of toning down during its lighter moments to fine-tune it into an efficient and more watchable experience.

Thanks.