Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy arrived in 2004 with a demon for a hero and a comic-book pedigree most studios would have sanded down. The film runs 122 minutes. It is fantasy and action, and its tagline — “From the dark side to our side.” — tells you the whole joke.
Trailer, via YouTube Movies.
Nazis Open a Door in 1944
The film opens in the final days of World War II. Grigori Rasputin, his disciples Ilsa von Haupstein and Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, and a group of Nazis build a dimensional portal to free the Ogdru Jahad, the Seven Gods of Chaos, and win a war they are losing. An Allied strike force interrupts the ceremony and destroys the portal. Rasputin is pulled in. Haupstein and Kroenen escape.
The Allies find an infant demon with a stony right hand had come through. They dub him Hellboy. The young scientist Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm adopts him as a son.
John Myers Joins the Bureau
Haupstein and Kroenen, both eternally youthful, resurrect Rasputin. FBI agent John Myers is transferred to the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense at Broom’s request. He is assigned to assist the adult Hellboy and Abraham “Abe” Sapien, an amphibious psychic humanoid.
The BPRD investigates an incident at a museum, where Hellboy battles a creature called Samael. After defeating it, he visits Liz Sherman at the mental hospital she committed herself to over her unstable pyrokinetic abilities.
Samael Keeps Coming Back
Abe learns Rasputin resurrected Samael and gave it the power to lay eggs, reincarnate and split its essence every time it dies. Hellboy, Abe and several FBI agents move to destroy the nest in the sewer. Hellboy breaks off to chase Kroenen. Abe is injured. Kroenen kills most of the agents, then shuts down his cyborg body to trick the BPRD into recovering him.
FBI director Tom Manning reprimands Hellboy. Rasputin secretly manipulates Liz into returning to him.
Ron Perlman Wears the Stones
Ron Perlman plays Hellboy, and the casting is the film’s spine. Selma Blair is Liz Sherman. Doug Jones is Abe Sapien. John Hurt is Broom. Rupert Evans is Myers, Jeffrey Tambor is Manning, Karel Roden is Rasputin, Ladislav Beran is Kroenen, Bridget Hodson is Haupstein.
Del Toro wrote the film with Mike Mignola and Peter Briggs, drawing on the debut comic Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. Mignola created the character for Dark Horse Comics. This is the first live-action film in the franchise.
Hellboy is a 2004 American superhero film based on the Dark Horse Comics character, created by Mike Mignola.
The Agency Is the Best Idea Here
The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is the film’s strongest invention. A secret government agency staffed by a demon, a merman and a woman who sets things on fire is a premise that could carry a franchise on its own, and del Toro treats it as a workplace rather than a freak show. Perlman plays the title character as a man with a job, not a monster with a curse. That choice is why the film still holds up.
The Samael mechanic is the sharpest piece of writing. A creature that splits its essence and reincarnates every time it dies turns the heroes’ main skill — killing things — into the engine of the problem. It is a clean, mean idea.
Too Many Pieces, Not Enough Liz
The film has too many pieces. Rasputin, Kroenen, Haupstein, Samael, the nest, the museum, the hospital, the reprimand — the middle stretch moves between them without letting any one land. Kroenen’s fake shutdown is a good trick, but the film rushes past it.
The Liz thread is the emotional center and gets the least room. She committed herself over abilities she cannot control. That is the most interesting thing in the movie, and it stays background for most of the runtime.
What the Box Office Confirms
Hellboy grossed $99.8 million against a production budget between $60–66 million, got generally positive reviews, and spawned Hellboy II: The Golden Army in 2008 plus two reboots. The 2004 film earned that. It is a confident, strange superhero movie with a great lead and a premise sturdier than its plot.
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