During a subway station battle in Guillermo del Toro's new comic book-based film Hellboy, the titular character comes up against an all-too-common superhero dilemma. Facing off against an snarling dog-creature, Hellboy is distracted by a commuter begging him to save the box she dropped, filled with adorable, squirming kittens. But where the white-bread Superman or gentle-hearted Spiderman would immediately leap to the aid of the endangered fluffy animals, Hellboy, a cynical red demon, is the kind of guy who likes to set his priorities straight.
"Lady," he groans, "not now."Summoned up as a baby by the Nazis, but rescued and raised by a kindly scientist (John Hurt, The Elephant Man) to be an asset to the FBI, Hellboy's distinct lack of courtesy is understandable. In addition, due to the different aging rate in his native dimension, Hellboy is emotionally a young man; rebellious, cranky and far more interested in pursuing his beautiful but tormented friend Liz (Selma Blair, Legally Blonde) than in helping to protect the world.

As the movie industry is smack dab in the middle of a phase in which the multiplexes seem to be crammed with tales of brooding, misunderstood teenage heartthrobs with "special powers," Hellboy was at a high risk for becoming just another nacho in the salsa bowl.

That the movie remains interesting and notably bereft of an overabundance of angst is due in a large part to the casting of 54-year-old Ron Perlman (Star Trek: Nemesis), a talented character actor who is no stranger to extensive makeup work. Thanks to Perlman, Hellboy gives off just the right combination of brooding, aggression and grumbling wit- enough to make him both complex and appealing as a character. If the part had been miscast, the entire movie might have been a disaster. Fortunately, Perlman ends up being the perfect support to hold up the film.

Generally, the rest of the cast is hit-and-miss. Rupert Evans, who plays Hellboy's new assistant, John Myers, makes a remarkably nondescript big-screen debut. In part, this is because his rocky association with Hellboy is not explored as well as it could have been; it seems to also be partly due to the fact that the somewhat bland Evans doesn't generate the same on-screen sparks as Perlman consistently does. Blair, as Liz, known as "Firestarter" because, when enraged, she's liable to shoot flames from her body, does a nice job conveying the inner pain of the character and her tumultuous relationship with Hellboy. But she does not receive enough time to be much more than a mystery by the end of the picture.

The only supporting cast member who really comes close to equaling Perlman's impact is Doug Jones (Hocus Pocus) who plays Hellboy's buddy and fellow FBI assistant Abe Sapien, a fishlike creature with the ability to see into the past and the future. With impeccable diction and a temperate nature, Abe seems like a sort of ichthyic David Hyde Pierce, and quickly establishes himself in the short time he is granted as one of the more funny and delightful aspects of the film. In the sequel which will inevitably follow, Abe will hopefully have much more to do.

Besides Perlman, what really makes Hellboy worth something is not the other characters, nor the special effects, even though they are quite magnificent-Hellboy is one of the few live-action films to incorporate CGI almost seamlessly, at least to the point where the viewer isn't constantly transported back to reality. Rather, it is del Toro's fantastic use of laid-back, personal moments, which add a deeper dimension to Hellboy. Knowing about Abe's predilection for rotten eggs, or that Hellboy is compiling some sort of secret, unexplained list describing his feelings for Liz doesn't move along the story at all, but it does flesh out many of the characters, making them come across as having true, likable personalities in a short amount of time.

The same praise, sadly, can't be given to all aspects of the film. You see, Hellboy suffers from an acute case of Bad Plot Syndrome. One would think that the combined powers of the legendary mad monk Rasputin (Bulletproof Monk's Karel Roden, sneering effectively), a sadistic Nazi murderess (Bridget Hodson, Wilde), and a creepy metal-masked, knife-handed assassin (Ladislav Beran, Blade II) would be foes formidable enough not only to sustain Hellboy, but also a sequel or two. If only their motive was as promising. Their plan to use Hellboy to bring about the apocalypse is certainly villainous enough, but seriously, it's been done before.

Opening the gates of hell is sky-high on the list of overused devious plots, right up there with world domination and claiming Earth's money supply. On top of that, it's kind of a silly plan anyway. It's always been a puzzle as to why so many cinematic bad guys are dead-set on the destruction of time as we know it; somehow a post-apocalyptic future doesn't hold the certain appealing charm which the present-day world does, and "being evil" hardly cuts it as a satisfactory motivation.
Despite its flaws, Hellboy still makes for a fun way to pass a night at the movie theater. If films were food, Hellboy would be something like French Onion Soup: It hasn't got much substance, and it's layered in cheese, but it still makes a pretty tasty meal.