Sick of comic book movies? Get over it, or you'll be salty every two weeks.
Among the superhero-themed flicks on the horizon are "Spider-Man 2," "The Punisher," "Catwoman," "Alien vs. Predator" and "Blade: Trinity." Those are just this year.
Leading this year's pack is "Hellboy," based on Mike Mignola's popular cult comic for Dark Horse. The film adaptation is a visually stunning, intellectually stimulating story with nicely fleshed-out characters and imagination to spare - for the first half.
During World War II, a group of Nazis seeks to uncover the portal to hell with the assistance of presumed-dead occult master Rasputin (Karel Roden). The portal is opened, but immediately closed after a gun battle. But something got through - a red, apish boy.
Fast-forward to present day, where Hellboy (Ron Perlman) is the secret, monster-slaying weapon of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), a super-secret government agency akin to that of the "Men in Black" films. Hellboy, a tabloid favorite, is a hard-hitting, wise-cracking brute with a Bruce Willis sense of humor and undeniable heart - he loves kittens, bacon, cigars, beer and fellow "freak" Liz Sherman (a fire-throwing beauty played with no skill by Selma Blair).
But all is not well as Rasputin returns, seeking to bring about the apocalypse. The key to his goal is Hellboy, whom he seeks to imprison and use for evil. He dispatches the venom-spewing, self-resurrecting hound Sammael to lure the hero onto the streets.
The first half of "Hellboy" is nothing less than solid. The storyline, which intricately intertwines occultism, history, action and character into an involving narrative, is quite creative. Director Guillermo del Toro, who proved a master of the atmospheric with the cerebrally creepy "The Devil's Backbone," lays the imagery on thick with dark, gothic landscapes and a brooding sense of danger. He also wisely opts to keep the violence - and there is a lot of it - relatively bloodless, save the monsters, which gush purple blood.
Del Toro also benefits from a great cast of characters. Particularly good is John Hurt as Hellboy's "father" and the head of the BPRD. As a scientist who abhors violence and seeks to make the world better, the veteran actor breathes a great deal of humanity into the story.
Perhaps the coolest of the characters, though, is the villain Kroenen (Ladislav Beran). A silent, ancient former head assassin for Hitler, Kroenen is a blade-wielding madman in full body armor, a Nazi uniform and a gas mask. Visually stunning and physically menacing, the leather-skinned warrior with no eyelids is easily the film's best presence, and his fight scenes are top-notch.
All these elements come together for a great first half, but the film dumbs itself down. The visual appeal is still there, but the intelligence seemingly flees the scene. Where the first half is action mixed with story, the second is mindlessly simple - abandoning creativity for big special effects, larger-scale fights (which get real old) and dumber lines. "Hellboy" still manages to make an original and stimulating screen debut. If only the first half's attention to detail was employed to the resolution, it would stand alone as a great adaptation.
