i am not a fan of the hellboy comics nor did i even know what the hell “hellboy” was when i first saw the trailer for the movie featuring the comic book superhero. but the fact that i had no idea what the movie was going to be about didn’t save me from hating the crap out of it.

first of all, what kind of a name is hellboy? batman, superman, spider-man are all pretty cool names. but calling a seven-foot crimson neanderthal from the depths of hell a “boy” isn’t just oxymoronic, it’s also just plain ol’ moronic. the acting was also pretty bad. ron perlman was interesting as a huge demon helping the fbi, but a terrible actor. selma blair’s best was in cruel intentions as a babbling idiot. the highlight performance was from newcomer rupert evans, who plays a meek yet adorable fbi agent acting as liaison for poor, secluded hellboy.

the storyline was not very attention-grabbing. i felt bored throughout most of the film, holding my head up with my hands the entire time. perhaps a more effective method of staying awake throughout hellboy would have been to use clothes-pins on my eyelids. the main villain of the movie? rasputin. huh? he looked strangely like zangief from street fighter. the ending was also anticlimactic, the final “boss” being so easy to defeat.