| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Ron Perlman | ... | Hellboy | |
| John Hurt | ... | Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm | |
| Selma Blair | ... | Liz Sherman | |
| Rupert Evans | ... | John Myers | |
| Karel Roden | ... | Grigori Rasputin | |
| Jeffrey Tambor | ... | Tom Manning | |
| Doug Jones | ... | Abe Sapien | |
| Brian Steele | ... | Sammael | |
| Ladislav Beran | ... | Karl Ruprecht Kroenen | |
| Biddy Hodson | ... | Ilsa Haupstein (as Bridget Hodson) | |
| Corey Johnson | ... | Agent Clay | |
| Kevin Trainor | ... | Young "Broom" | |
| Brian Caspe | ... | Agent Lime | |
| James Babson | ... | Agent Moss | |
| Stephen Fisher | ... | Agent Quarry | |
At the end of World War II, Nazi officers Karl Ruprecht Kroenen and Ilsa Haupstein start an experiment to raise the forces of Hell trough Russian dark mystic Rasputin on a Scottish island, but it's interrupted by an allied commando guided by professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm. He prevents killing the human-demonic half-blood, which was accidentally created and raises this "Hellboy", while rising to head of a secret C.I.A.-linked U.S. agency Bureau of Paranormal Research, which secretly studies and uses the occult, including supernatural freaks. As "father" Broom is aging, he hand-picks brilliant, sensitive Agent John Myers as new minder-companion, as regular "warrior" Agent Clay can't empathize and lacks flexibility mental. Hellboy is quite a handful, regularly spotted by worried civilians on unauthorized excursions, especially to pyro-telekinetic freak friend in a mental asylum. Johnny, Hellboy, and Clay team up on missions against paranormal threats with aquatic-bionic freak Abe ... Written by KGF Vissers
This movie is a fun watch, but mainly because of Ron Perlman. The action is well done and the story is great, but Perlman makes the character of Hellboy (a demon raised by "the good guys") just amazingly human, with a wry sense of humor. You would be hard pressed to find anyone anywhere who could do this character as well as Perlman, let alone better. The physicality seems to have been tailor made to fit Perlman's features and the delivery of the lines is just so understatedly comedic that there are few who could pull it off at all.
Of course, there are a couple times when the special effects are a little weaker than you would hope, but it doesn't detract from the movie as a whole. For instance, in the final battle scene, there are a couple shots where the Hellboy character clearly appears to be GC. But the fight moves so fast that you don't have much time to focus on those shots before something else amazing happens.
See it. Love it.