by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

In the wake of X-Men and Spider-Man comes Hellboy, the latest action-fantasy comic book adapted for the silver screen. Unlike the others, Hellboy is the product of a single artist's vision, that of artist and writer Mike Mignola. It was good to hear that Mignola was involved in every step of the film's creation, and good to see that director Guillermo del Toro (Devil's Backbone, Blade II) harboured such love for his source material.

Capturing Mignola's stark and shadow-drenched graphic style was beyond del Toro, who anyway has his own visual sensibility (one that suits Hellboy well) and his own particular obsessions (goggles, subways and crucifixes, it seems). What he kept was the essential - Mignola's storytelling tone, one in which monumental cosmic horror plays successful counterpoint to the cigar-chomping palooka patter of his horned, hell-spawned hero. A rough, gruff goof with jutting brow and jaw, the monster-mashing, Nazi-knocking Hellboy was a role that only Ron Perlman could play, and play it to the hilt he does, making for an immensely likeable protagonist.

Hellboy's sidekicks in the top-secret Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense are of varying interest. Actor Doug Jones brings a fascinating physical and verbal elegance to the lithe and lanky fishman Abe Sapien, refined aesthete (meaning gay, if that works for fish) to Hellboy's butch ballsiness. On the other hand, conspicuously inconspicuous is the great actor John Hurt. His turn as Hellboy's surrogate dad Professor Broom, who's sort of like X-Men's Dr. Xavier, never really attracts notice. Shame.

Another del Toro detour is the love triangle he cooked up among Hellboy, his crush object Liz Sherman (a pyrokinetic BPRD colleague) and his newbie handler from the FBI, John Myers. A silly digression, but one that's effective in showing Hellboy as a flummoxed lummox.

Simply put, fans of the Hellboy comic (and we are legion!) won't be terribly disappointed. The uninitiated, just out for a fun Friday-night thrill ride, will find the flick a freaky popcorn-muncher that delivers above and beyond the call of duty.

Hellboy opens Friday, April 2

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