Hellboy

Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Karel Roden, Rupert Evans, and John Hurt

At the height of World War II, the Nazis dabble in the occult in search of a new breed of weaponry. Their head-sorcerer opens a portal, hoping to bring about the apocalypse, but is foiled by a U.S. army troop. The portal is closed before the sorcerer can finish his work, but something has stumbled through; a baby demon that the army troop names Hellboy. Hellboy is a mix of action and sci-fi, steeped in the paranormal and sprinkled with a goodly helping of comedy.

This movie is refreshing because it's premise is so abstract. It pulls together many ideas that I enjoy in a movie and brings them together with an entriguing storyline.

I liked all the characters in the movie; good and bad. The acting was terrific, especially for a movie of this genera. I would say that the weakest performance came from Selma Blair, but her character is a weak character, so I'm not certain that my criticism in entirely fair.

Above all, this movie is visually stunning - or perhaps vibrant is a better work. Can something be vibrant and dark at the same time? I'll put it this way: The main character has bright red skin and one of the supporting characters has bright blue skin. They work together in dark scenes to combat a green demon dog of sorts. As I said before, it's abstract in a way.

I thoroughly enjoyed Hellboy, but I'm compelled to advise the reader that this movie is not for kids because of its skewed spiritual subject matter and sometimes violent scenes.

Another movie that I completely resisted, mainly because I honestly believe in the concept of Hell, and I don't like the idea making a demon out to be the hero.

However, if you can step back from that and see it just as a comic book character, it becomes a litany of one-liners that show how un-hell-like Big Red really is. Personally, I didn't really care about any of the characters, the special effects really didn't blow my hair back, and the story was so full of holes that I could have walked away at pretty much any minute and not feel like I missed much.

And having NOT walked out, I'm missing over an hour of my life. And writing this took another fifteen minutes. When will the madness end?!?