Verdict:
This film is held up by pillars of style, thanks to stylish costumes, nice colour pallet, textures, fun props, neat camera shots and ideas for cool scenes (something its sequel would expand upon). The make-up is especially impressive, giving us an authentic representation of the creatures from the comic books and, arguably, improving on their look. In this aspect, Del Toro couldn’t have been a better choice of a director. Even the outdated effects don’t look too bad, as the digital effects are properly mixed in with practical ones. However, the connective tissue that would tie these cool shots together into a coherent unit is lacking.
There are glaring screenplay issues. For example, a monster jumps through the front of a moving subway train and out of the other end, ending up in location A. Hellboy gets dragged under that same train in the opposite direction for a while and is then left on the ground in location B. Someone wasn’t good at math problems because, in the very next shot, the monster is shown standing directly above Hellboy, looking around.
There is a character who is basically a nazi ninja, and there is a sequence in which he keeps swinging his knives around for no reason for what feels like at least 5 minutes (complete with whooshing sound effects). Did a 10-year-old boy get involved in the production of this movie? This kind of nonsense permeates the movie from beginning to end, and it is very distracting.
Hellboy is one of Ron Pearlman’s better roles, despite the fact that his face is under a layer of make-up and his lines mostly consist of monotone gruffs. Even the shape of his face fits the character he plays. Jeffrey Tambor’s and Doug Jones’ characters provide a colourful counterbalance to Hellboy’s gruffness. However, everybody’s lacklustre dialogue compounds the problems of flawed storytelling and this keeps the movie from reaching its potential.
The good source material probably helped Del Toro make this movie into something special, which was good enough to get a sequel, but I am glad that the sequel fixed many of the problems of the first film. This first film is still worth watching though, even if only for the charm and the creature design. I know this is a comic book movie, but please have adults write your screenplays.