Review: Hellboy

“_Another_ superhero movie ?” you might be thinking. Well, yeah, they’re kinda popular these days, and they usually make big money. This time it’s not from the two biggest names (Marvel and DC), but it’s from Dark Horse Comics. Their track record hasn’t been a clean one, with only one memorable entry (The Mask) standing out from the failures (Barb Wire). Enter Hellboy, the first to have this real superhero comic feeling (and a modest budget to match). Headed by the original comic writer Mike Mignola and a determined director, Guillermo del Toro (who turned down bigger movies for this one), you’d might think something special would result from this duo. Too bad though, titles like X-Men and Spider-man wipe the floor with anything mediocre, and its standards are too high to match. What you get instead is a somewhat simple outline, with simple character design. With a tiny bit of exploration, you just don’t get enough out of it. The reasons and motivations are non-existent, making for bland superheros and supervillains. The special effects are admirable for this kind of tight budgets though. And globally, it’s still entertaining. But when you think about it, you still wonder how Hellboy 2 came to life (tentative release 2006).7.