A great concept burdened by an unwieldy back story, the comic-book adaptation Hellboy feels like the ponderous prologue to a novel. Ron Perlman nearly saves the movie in the title role. A demon who has been raised by a kindly professor to battle the forces of evil, Hellboy conducts his missions with dripping sarcasm. Hellboy couldn’t care less about all of the occult mumbo jumbo driving the script, and I couldn’t agree with him more. From director Guillermo del Toro.
