“HELLBOY”
Starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy/HB/Red), John Hurt (Professor Trevor Broom/Father), Selma Blair (Elizabeth/Liz Sherman), Doug Jones (Abraham 'Abe' Sapien), Rupert Evans (John Myers), & Karel Roden (Grigori Rasputin)

I don’t really know what the story is actually about but I heard that HB is another comic book character brought to life in the big screen. I don’t think it’s a Marvel comic since I used to read Marvel, so forgive my ignorance for not knowing where HB was spawned (if you’ll forgive the pun). Heh.

I was slightly disappointed by it, which was ironic since I wasn’t really expecting anything. The story isn’t really all that deep, something that has already been used before. It’s basically the same thing with different wrappings and presentation. The moral? It matters not your beginnings, only the choices you made. Wasn’t that already used in “Harry Potter” (check out book 2, “Chamber of Secrets”)? Wasn’t it also used in “Spiderman” where the choices made form who you are? Then again, who am I to complain since don’t all movies conform to one famous adage or another?

Anyway, HB or Red or whatever he wants to call himself was born during World War II. Apparently, the German were using supernatural forces to fight the war, with Rasputin (yes that guy from any “Anastacia” movie and, in history, of the Romanov reign) as its main wizard or whatever you call ‘em. He was in the middle of creating, er, some sort of worm hole to connect universes and find some banished chaos gods elsewhere. Prof Trevor, the head of the department of paranormal whatevers in the USA is there to stop them. But, in the height of stupidity, they don’t do anything until Rasputin has started it… and of course, once started, you don’t just blunder into something supernatural. So, of course, they have to wait. But they can’t ‘cause then Rasputin would’ve been successful, right? So they blunder in the middle of it all… ends up closing the wormhole, which Rasputin gets sucked into, and HB is born. From where? Don’t ask me. Guess worm holes are also asexual beings that spawn red-skinned, stunted-horned, tailed babies. It was Prof Trevor and the rest of the team that dubbed the little guy ‘Hellboy’ but Prof Trevor (whom HB will end up calling “Father”) decides to raise HB with love and goodness and all that stuff.

Years later, Prof Trev is all old and wrinkly and HB is looking like an over-gym-ed adult. Apparently, he ages differently than us lowly earth-toned-skin humans. He’s everything you could imagine a hell boy to be: loud, obnoxious, loves one-liners, rebellious, prefers to work alone, etc, etc. John Mayer is called upon to work as HB’s keeper because Prof Trev knows he’s about to die (‘coz he’s sick also though what he’s sick of is never mentioned) and, obviously, HB doesn’t like John and even resents him. More so when John crushes on the one girl he loves, a pyro named Liz Sherman.

What, you never saw a movie before? The love triangles and resentment of authority is pretty much normal fare.

Anyway, Rasputin gets resurrected by his ladylove, but he’s different, now he’s a puppet for some demon person. He releases more disgusting demons which HB and Abe (a fish-y telepathic prophetic smart guy) try to kill. But it’s not that easy ‘cause, y’see, there’s a catch: for every weirdo killed, two more are born. And not only that, each creature can give birth to others more. And it’s really not a pretty picture.

Aaanyway. The little eggs and all the adults die when PyroLiz bursts into blue flames and fries them all. All this after exciting fight scenes, of course. And that scene doesn’t kinda make sense because just a few scenes back, Liz tells HB that she can now control her power. Then when faced with the eggs, she asks John to slap her so she can light up her fire. But whatever, that’s besides the point.

As always, the good guys win, the bad guys perish; the hero was actually born to aid the demon in fully opening the worm hole and releases them chaos gods. But then HB, with John yelling for him to remember Prof Trev’s teachings, exercises his free will and decides to do the right thing. He also ends up getting the girl.

There’s a pretty funny part of the movie, when John walks Liz home and HB trails after them looking like a love-sick, er, red puppy. His one-liners are also pretty amusing.

If you want to watch it, then do so, but do so with the knowledge that you’ll only end up being mildly entertained during the hour and half of watching. If you’ve got nothing better to do, feel free to watch.