Crushing Spiderman like the comparatively insignificant insect he really is (and bear in mind, around these parts we’re still playing with our web-slingers), Mike Mignola’s comic book Thing From Another World storms our screens like the twisted Nazis that spawned him. Forget Peter Parker’s girlie strop in Spidey 2, Hellboy is a proper enfant terrible, like something forged by a focus group comprising Aleister Crowley, Jean-Paul Sartre, Holden Caulfield and some edgy MTV executives.
Of course, Hellboy’s origins, as depicted in this inspired adaptation from arch purveyor of gloom, Guillermo del Toro (Blade 2, The Devil’s Backbone, Cronos), are more bemusing still. In 1944, as part of a dastardly attempt to turn their military fortunes around, the aforementioned Nazis – under instruction from an indestructible, blade-fingered, mutant commander – conduct a black mass. Their purpose is to access ‘The Seven Gods Of Chaos’. Mad Monk Rasputin’s even there for the occasion. In Scotland. It’s just that kind of movie.
This nefarious enterprise is foiled by the Allied Forces, but not before the netherworld has spewed forth an infant Hellboy – a cute, ickle scarlet abomination that finds its way into the paternal arms of occult-expert Bruttenholm (an endearing Hurt).
Six decades on, and the now behemoth miscreation – brilliantly essayed by out-sized Ron Perlman (truly, this is the monster he was born to play) – is struggling with puberty, an oedipal crisis and gargantuan HR Gigerish squid thingies that a re-resurrected Rasputin and ghoulish associates have unleashed upon New York. But mutated demon-tentacles are mere trifles compared to the agonies of puppy love, and Hellboy has it bad.
“How am I ever going to get a girl?” he intones balefully, in between filing his horns with an angle-grinder, hiding cigarettes behind his back and stuffing his face with nachos. As it happens, he’s less interested in getting a girl than the girl. The pining devil’s lost object and other ache is Liz (Blair), a beautiful and seductively troubled self-harming firestarter. Alas, a rival for this combustible inamorata (and his Daddy’s affections) appears when Hellboy is teamed up with John Myers, a weedy, wet-behind-the-ears, but conventionally handsome rookie. Will the pair be able to save their Gothamite environs with a blazing hussy potentially coming between them? And will true paranormal love win out?
Such bizarre inquiries seem all the more pressing against the compellingly weird parallel universe del Toro has fashioned – brooding skies, trees wrapped in plastic, piles of discarded typewriters – yep, this is the definitely the work of the Cronos director, but his remarkable touch extends way beyond dark visual flair. The action is never less than Dionysian, the self-reflexive tone (“The whole lonely hero thing”, as Hellboy succinctly puts it) is perfectly pitched, and the gushing climax is a gorgeous, unforgettable entanglement of flaming and foolish hearts.
All hail our new Dark Lord. Well, at least until Ronnie James Dio gets back on the road.