Movie: Hellboy

Having never read the comic I only had the trailers to wet my appetite for this movie and wet the appetite they did. So much so that I've been annoyed for ages that this movie was released in the US and then took what seemed an age to get over here. Really in this day and age it's unacceptable. Especially if they are serious about beating the pirates but enough of that let's get on with the review.

As I mentioned this movie started it's life in the same place many of the current blockbusters seem to have started, in the pages of a comic book but as I said I've not actually read the comics so I won't be able to give you a fan boys perspective on how they did this or that wrong. So to give you a brief run "In the final days of World War II, the Nazis attempt to use black magic to aid their dying cause. The Allies raid the camp where the ceremony is taking place, but not before a demon - Hellboy - has already been conjured." lucky for us the good old 'US of A' save's the day and rescue's the little demon before the Nazi get to corrupt him...you'd think hell might just have done that already but apparently not. So under the good up bring of a loving "father" occult scientist in the US. Hellboy (Ron Perlman) becomes a force for good, cut to the present and he's fighting for uncle sam against the freaks and monsters, mainly set by Grigori Rasputin (Karel Roden) and his Nazi friends. Ron Perlman is excellent in the lead role and cut's a rather impressive image, his cigar smoking wise cracking Demon works well but in the end I felt he was still a second rate 'Wolverine' character, still entertaining none the less. Liz Sherman (Selma Blairs) the love interest for both Hellboy and John Myers (Rupert Evans) hellboys new FBI liasion and she also just happens to have some nifty abilitys of her own.

The story over all is passable and could easily be from the pages of a comic which I kind of liked but the real star is the special effects, it seems that in the last few years hollywood has finally got to the stage where it can do comic books. In the past we've had rubber monsters and very fake looking cgi (If I'm honest we still get that at times). Now we get lovely explosions realist looking adverarys and damn fine explosions. The best bit is it all works in this movie the way it should, I didn't really find myself think 'oh some cgi' or 'oh plasic monster'. I never noticed the effect and that to me is what makes good special effects!

Ok so you've probably guessed by now that I liked this movie, it's not the most original thing in the world, it won't change your life but if you got two hours to spare it is a good popcorn fest.