I should make a quip about how comic book films are like buses these days but at the moment it seems that a good job is generally being done at bringing our favourite comic book heroes to the screen. Admittedly, you got some dodgy ones like Daredevil, The Punisher, Catwoman and Spawn it seems that these are the exceptions rather than the norm these days.

Hellboy is not a comic I’m familiar with but I really, really enjoyed the movie. The premise is simple – during WW2, the newly founded Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense interrupt a Nazi occult ceremony that, if successful, will bring about the end of the world. Obviously. During the ceremony a baby demon is brought to earth and rescued by the fledgling BPRD and christened, appropriately enough, Hellboy. Fast forward 60 years and Hellboy is now a 7 ft tall, red skinned demon working for the very same organisation that took him in.

Like Spiderman 2, one of the things which sets Hellboy apart is the ‘human’ aspect of the characters. Despite Hellboy being a badass demon with a big badass gun, these aren’t what define him. When we first meet him, he has fallen out with his adopted father (Professor Bruttenholme, played by the great John Hurt). Not in a “we’re at war” sense but in a stroppy teenage “we’re not talking to each other” sense. Hellboy regularly files down his horns so that he’ll ‘fit in’, he gets jealous and petulant and is just as victim to all the emotions that we feel as, we well, we are. It’s a credit to the ability of Ron Perlman who plays Hellboy under all the (absolutely incredible) make up that we can believe in Hellboy as a character rather than just a shallow, two dimensional figure.

If I have any criticism of the film it’s that there wasn’t enough. I’m not sure what of, but I just felt that there could have been more of something. It might possibly be that I wanted to see more of what the characters could do. Or it could be that I wanted the villain, Rasputin, to be more threatening and ominous. I didn’t really think that they made the most of him and he isn’t going to be the most memorable of villains. Then again, the Nazi assassin Kroenen makes Darth Maul look like a wimp! Still, this is just nitpicking and while it would mean I would’t rate Hellboy as a five star film, it didn’t hamper my enjoyment of it.

There is a lot of humour in the movie and I found myself chuckling away while watching it. The action is great and there are some superb set pieces. Guillermo Del Toro (who is a much better director when left to his own devices – compare Blade 2 to The Devil’s Backbone) does a great job of both writing and directing and I dearly hope that he stays on board for Hellboy 2 which I’m sure will get made.