Great comic series, good times on screen. Del Toro doesn't capture the shadowiness and the Gothic art of the books, but does the get the heart of the material, and plays it well between lighthearted comedy, lighthearted action, and as much weirdness(talking corpses, psychic merman, pyroknesis, Rasputin, clockwork Nazi assassins, and Cthulu, to name a few of the flourishes),as the story can handle.

It is a super-hero movie, but one that mixes in occult myths, weird tales, and conspiracy theories, into a fine entertainment brew. Can't wait to see the next installment in the "The Golden Army". One of the best comic to film adaptations, not for style, but for heart and for fun's sake.

Hellboy is self-conscious, perhaps, but in the best ways possible. Actually, it's more due to writer/director Toro being very aware of what makes up the conventional bits to every sense character-wise to the world of a comic-book, but also what can be entertaining as well, than it is just to having it being a Hellboy movie where the comic-book Hellboy already exists IN this world (guy sees the Hellboy comic, looks up, it's Hellboy!). We get the tough-as-nails, dryly witty, and possibly ticking-time-bomb hero in Hellboy, a deadly serious villain in Rasputin (yes, Rasputin, with a blonde Nazi as his evil side-kick no less),the young apprentice to the hero (Ruper Evans as John Meyers),the hero's love interest (Liz Sherman played by Selma Blair),the father figure (John Hurt's Professor),and the reluctant 'boss' (Jeffrey Tambor),not to mention the plucky side mutant in Abraham (Doug Jones) AND a magnificent creature in that hard-ass slug. They're all there, bright as day (or dark, depending on point of view),and it all works wonderfully due to Toro running with it all head on. It's not done in a way that's meant to pander to the audience, either, but just to have fun with the conventions, to see what makes them all crackle and pop under big-time special effects. It's not quite a guilty pleasure because Toro is also a smart craftsman.

And craftsman just as much as director, he crafts this world where the creatures (which were and still are Toro's forte) are fierce and radically charged, whether they're crucial to the picture like Rasputin's rabid, rapidly hatching slug-monsters that can only be killed one or two ways, or if it's just a minor creature like the zombie Russian corpse that leads a little of the way when Hellboy and his crew are in the main hideout of the villains ("I was better off dead!"). Toro is sensitive to the characters alongside this, and makes them all pretty believable- and I say pretty cause it's all a little simple, yet effective, in the main thrust of Hellboy's emotional core being about Liz and if she may or may not go for John over him- and doesn't dumb it down too much or contrive the relationships for the audience. It's a good balance, because there is A LOT of action in Hellboy, in fact probably at least a 60% allotment to either Hellboy fighting the monsters after him (usually in the subway, or in the Russian castle),or with the possibly un-dead assassin in the mask and leather who marks as one of the fiercest forces in comic book movies.

So, fan-boys rejoice, because Hellboy should, and hopefully will, have everything one looks for in a brawny, high-octane entertainment where humor isn't confused with cheesiness (Perlman is too well focused as a possible anti-hero to get into any of that, as he makes that hugely built red lug a very real being),and the action isn't over-done with a tongue-in-cheek. Not that Toro doesn't flirt with having goofy things in his picture, like a moment where Hellboy has to save a box of kittens from the grasp of the slug-monster. But they're earned moments among a very tightly constructed story where human evils in history and the bizarre in what is in the facts (Hitler into the occult, Rasputin's very long death) into a comfortably understood framework of comic-book clichés that never get too old when done right. Bottom line, can't wait for number 2!

If Mike Mignola isn't careful he's going to have a whole cottage industry devoted to his comic strip creation Hellboy. Having just come from Hellboy II: The Golden Army and seeing his credits at this website makes me think about what a gold mine Mignola has found.

I saw the original Hellboy and I was struck by the fact at the time I could enjoy this film as an action/adventure and the tongue in cheek humor that is prevalent throughout. A lot of that is due to the fact that Mignola was apparently given a free hand to bring his comic book creation to life on the big screen. A lot is also due to Ron Perlman and the marvelous character he creates beneath all that demon makeup.

Hellboy is brought to life by the son of Rasputin the Mad Monk in the final days of World War II. Rasputin being the good royalist he is, finds work with the Nazis who are now down to using black magic to pull out a victory. Adolph Hitler was known in fact to delve into the occult.

Anyway their experiments produce an infant demon plucked from the spirit world, but he's rescued by John Hurt who raises him like a son and he grows up to be butt-kicking demon Ron Perlman who's grown to like such earthly pleasures as beer and cigars.

Hurt functions as the Obi Won Kenobe of this piece and when he's killed, there ain't no stopping Perlman.

Hellboy is rollicking good fun, Hellboy II is even better and I'm sure we've got a Hellboy, III in our future.