Maybe it's just me, but Hellboy (PG-13) looks like a guy in need of better sunscreen who tried cooling off by dumping two cans of cat food on his forehead. Not so, insist fans of this relatively unheralded Dark Horse Comics series, prompting the question: Does any comic book series have fewer fans than necessary to make a movie these days?
The answer should become clearer this weekend and April 16 when The Punisher, a Marvel Comics character without the cachet of Spider-Man or X-Men, opens in theaters. If Hellboy and The Punisher, which was filmed last year in Tampa, don't inspire impressive ticket sales, movie producers at least will have some idea of when to say no.
The role of Hellboy falls to Ron Perlman, whose vaguely simian face has been his ticket to fame, first as a caveman in Quest for Fire, then as one-half of TV's Beauty and the Beast. Perlman plays a demon who was originally summoned forth by Nazis as a World War II weapon, then rescued by Allied soldiers. Along the way his horns were ripped off, leaving those bony hockey pucks on his noggin. That didn't prevent him from becoming a monster hunter for a supersecret agency, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.
Hellboy is directed by Guillermo del Toro, whose stature in some quarters as a maestro of horror escapes me. His 1993 vampire flick Cronos (also starring Perlman) and the bug infestation flop Mimic were sluggishly pretentious. Blade II was everything a sequel usually is, starting with disappointing. Hellboy reportedly includes more humor than the average comic book avenger, so perhaps del Toro will be more inspired.
Hellboy was screened too late for Weekend. A full review will be published Friday on Page 2B.
A prince among coeds
Now we know why Hamlet was such a melancholy Danish prince. He never dated Julia Stiles, who finds herself the object of affection for a royal hunk in The Prince & Me (PG). Stiles plays Paige Morgan, a free-spirited premed student at a Midwestern university.
Paige flips for a classmate, unaware that Eddie (Luke Mably) is actually Prince Edvard Valdemar Dangaard of Denmark. He's only a year from ascending to the throne and wants to spend it acting normal, which apparently means hanging around Yankee commoners so he can stick out like a sore thumb. We can expect Paige to feel betrayed when the truth comes out, and a happy ending when she figures a little lying followed by a royal life isn't that big a deal.
The Prince & Me was directed by Martha Coolidge, who regularly veers between unique female characters (Rambling Rose, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, Valley Girl) and pampered-girl fantasies like this. The film wasn't screened in time for Weekend. Look for a review on Friday's Page 2B.
