Hellboy -- 2004 -- PG-13

Hellboy is another film based on a comic book where the hero of the story is actually a demon brought into this world by the Nazis, but rescued by the Americans and raised to be a defender against the forces of darkness. He tries to fit in as much as a large red man with a tail can, but it seems that sanding off his horns is just not enough.

Superhero films come in two main varieties in their first movie incarnation. Either we get a look at their first mission as a superhero, or they've been doing this for awhile and they're up against the biggest adventure of their lives. Hellboy is of the latter variety where this guy has been working for a special division of the FBI for years against weird creatures that pop in from the "other side," and is this story, he is going to undergoing not only a demon that resurrects itself when killed, but he's going to be hitting a lot of personal changes as well including dealing with his own personal demons.

Action-wise, we get a lot of it throughout to keep us interested in what's going on, and we're left hanging on multiple points to make us wonder what's up next. The worst thing that could happen keeps getting worse as we travel onward through the plot, whcih is simplistic laid out and followed, and it comes to a very neatly drawn head at the end where plot plus character is required to bring us to a satisfying conclusion. On a rather odd note, the film has no blood in any of its fight scenes. Hits, slashes, people run through, cut in half, and no blood is shown except in one scene where the existence of the blood is pivotal to the plot.

Character-wise, Hellboy is remarkably well drawn. He is the strongest character, and for a demon, he's very relatable and even a little believable. A fair attempt is made at filling out those around him, and a decent job is done in doing so, but they come no where near the complexity given to the lead. Given that this was based on a comic book, there are quite a few characters that serve to support Hellboy, and the villain is not only he, but his sidekicks as well, which gives us 6 other characters to get to know, and given that rather daunting task, they did a decent job. On the good guy side, the old guy gets more than anyone else with the girl and new guy coming in together with their development. On the villains, the weirdest of the bunch got most of the development, and this was in the form of a vocalization of his past by the old guy. The other two, including the main baddie, Rasputin, weren't given much more. Rasputin got a brief origin, and the girl...well, we know why she's still so young anyway.

This film delivers a lot for its genre, and really works hard to make its hero as human and real as possible (even though he's not human). It only falls short of the perfection mark because of its neglect to the other main characters in the mix. That being said, it is still a rather good film to watch if you don't have anything else to put on.