MOVIE REVIEW 'Hellboy' is a true cinematic original

The director began his career with art films.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
I'll be the first to admit I don't know squat about comic books.
Fortunately, my willful ignorance didn't prevent me from having a whale of a time at "Hellboy."
Though I'm hardly qualified to render a judgment on director Guillermo Del Toro's fidelity to Mike Mignola's Dark Horse comics source material, what's up on screen is all that matters. And Del Toro -- no stranger to comics-derived films as his smashing 2002 "Blade 2" attests -- has delivered a lollapalooza of a fanboy fantasy.
Self-confessed comics nut Del Toro has gone on record as stating that "Hellboy" was "made by geeks for geeks." But instead of being an "afficionados-only" shindig like Bryan Singer's "X-Men" movies, Del Toro's high-spirited, high-energy romp is pure "MIB"-style pleasure.
The Mexican-born Del Toro is an interesting case of a director who began his career in art films before venturing over to more populist waters. Del Toro didn't abandon his craft, principles or overriding cinematic intelligence while making the leap to megabudget fare that opens on 3,000 screens instead of a half-dozen.
Hey, this is the same guy who penned a 500-page critical study on Alfred Hitchcock.
Here's the story
Since "Hellboy" is intended as a franchise kick-off, Del Toro sensibly restricts the action to two of Mignola's story cycles, "Seed of Destruction" and "The Corpse." Not that there isn't plenty of ground to cover or colorful characters to introduce.
The film begins with Hellboy's "birth" during World War II as part of a fiendish plot by Grigori Rasputin -- yes, that Rasputin -- and the Nazis to bring the Seven Gods of Chaos to earth via a "Hell-Hole Generator." Thanks to the vigilant efforts of Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm (Kevin Trainor in the prologue; John Hurt in the present-day) from the top-secret U.S. government agency, Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, Rasputin's dastardly scheme is foiled.
The only otherworldly visitor to materialize is a beet-red horned toddler with a pointy tale whom Broom affectionately dubs "Hellboy."
Cut to 60-odd years later where Broom is now a frail, doddering old man living with Hellboy at BPRD's New Jersey home office. Broom and the grown-up H.B. work side-by-side investigating paranormal disturbances in a sort of father-son relationship.
H.B.'s rare excursions into the outside world ( & quot;Hellboy sightings" as they're known to the general public) are dismissed as "hallucinations" by government bureaucrats.
Causing BPRD honcho Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) major grief, though, are H.B.'s increasingly frequent visits to pyro-kinetic Liz Sherman (Selma Blair, whose sad half-smile will melt your heart). Some of the movie's funniest and most endearing scenes detail this odd couple's courtship.
Just when "Hellboy" looks like it might develop into a quirky love story between fire-retardant H.B. and flame girl Liz, Rasputin resurfaces to unleash a multitentacled monster named Sammael.
What's next
Soon, Manhattan is overrun with Sammael's bastard children and it's H.B., fish-man Abe Sapien (think a cuddlier "Creature from the Black Lagoon" with David Hyde Pierce's voice) and Liz to the rescue.
Tagging along is rookie FBI agent John Myers (appealing newcomer Rupert Evans), Broom's eventual replacement as H.B.'s protector and comrade. Their mission ultimately takes them to Moscow where they must stop Rasputin and his master race of mutant freakazoids from destroying the world.
Unlike such previous comics-to-screen translations as Mark Steven Johnson's tepid "Daredevil" which were too busy imitating other superhero flicks to find an identity of their own, Del Toro has hatched a true cinematic original.
In some ways, Del Toro's "Hellboy" is an even more impressive series-launcher than Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" was two years ago. If Raimi sometimes erred on the side of caution for fear of offending diehard Stan Lee fans, Del Toro simply has a lot of fun with Mignola's crackpot "H.B." mythology.
More than virtually any previous director who's dared to venture into these cult-crazy waters, Del Toro understands that an appreciation of fun is what attracts readers to comic books in the first place.
The film's pulpy epic grandeur is just a happy dividend.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.