'Hellboy' is in on the joke

The comic book-turned-movie saves the day by not taking itself too seriously. But hey, get some real villains.

At least filmmaker Guillermo del Toro realizes that comic book creatures are a silly excuse to make movies. While other franchises treat their characters with reverence that might make Mel Gibson squirm, Hellboy is completely aware that it's a joke, although the one-note, two-horn humor wears thin long before the end credits.

Take away his rippling muscles, shaved horns, Hades-colored skin and enormous handgun and Hellboy would be any other tough, loner movie cop. He speaks with seen-it-all nonchalance, punctuated by wisecracks and rolled eyes in unlikely moments. Hellboy even gets saddled with a partner (Rupert Evans) he doesn't want but learns to respect. Standard stuff, but the otherworldly package freshens those cliches for a while. A shorter running time would have helped even more.

Ron Perlman, who looks like he's playing a beast even when he isn't, stars as Hellboy, a demon turned monster-buster. The plot seems concocted by a creature-doodling schoolboy paying just enough attention to history lessons about Rasputin and Hitler so he can mash together disconnected villains and a crush on the girl two desks away. Hellboy was summoned by Nazis during World War II as a last-ditch weapon, rescued by the Allies and raised by kindly Prof. Bruttenholm (John Hurt) to battle evil.

Yet there isn't a clearly defined evil to be battled. Hellboy is tracking the Seven Gods of Chaos who all look the same: blobs with tentacles. Rasputin (Karel Roden) returned to unleash them, but without the Nazis or any sense of purpose except brawling with Hellboy. The special effects are charmingly cheap but that is no excuse for a lack of diversity among creepy crawlers.

The best moments in Hellboy occur when the lovelorn beast pines for Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), whose paranormal power of lighting fires - apparently propane - also made her an outcast in society. The notion of such an ugly hulk spying on her date with his partner is amusing and in line with such entertainment's appeal to geeks. "All us freaks have is each other," Liz says.

Perlman handles the title role well, adding exaggerated machismo to the latex makeup. Hellboy is just a big kid, using his tail to steal beer and hiding a chomped cigar from his surrogate father. He'll slam a creature with one hand while holding a box of kittens in the other. Del Toro stages fun moments like those but not often enough.

There's something to like about a movie in which it is declared that FDR had a paranormal adviser, and that a demon could be tamed with Baby Ruth candy bars. Certainly Hellboy's sense of humor is more acute than Mystery Men a few years ago that strained to achieve the silliness of superheroes. Yet Hellboy may as well be on comic book pages rather than film, colorful, flat and easier to skim through.

Grade: C+

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Cast: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Karel Roden, John Hurt, Rupert Evans, Doug Jones

Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro, based on the comic books by Mike Mignola

Rating: PG-13; action violence, frightening images

Running time: 122 min.

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