There are many things to love and admire about Hellboy, and most of them can be summed up with the name of its star: Ron Perlman. Perlman is an actor whose resume is padded with forgettable films that were no doubt elevated by his presence; he is beloved by film buffs for his roles in cult films from directors who truly appreciate his talents, like Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, who gave him the lead in their stunning City Of Lost Children, or Guillermo Del Toro, who gave him memorable roles in Cronos and Blade 2 before managing the impossible and getting this, a big budget adaptation of Mike Mignola's cult comic book, off the ground with Perlman as the title character. Seeing him front and center in a studio tentpole picture is sort of a dream come true. Thank God Blade 2 (which I still believe is one of the best action horror films in many years) was so successful, because it gave Del Toro the clout to make this film the way he wanted.

Hellboy is an unmistakable character who nonetheless will be unknown by most moviegoers; he is the star of a series of graphic novels by Mignola, (whose woodcut-style illustrations are the type that elevate comics to a level of high art), a devil raised by humans and employed by a secret governement agency dedicated to fighting the forces of evil in the world (think Men In Black by way of the Catholic Church). He's huge, bright red, with a tail, one hand made of solid stone and two horns which he files down to stumps. He speaks with the terseness of an average joe; his catchphrase, often uttered when faced with an unspeakable foe from hell, is 'Aw, crap.'

The movie, adapted by Del Toro, begins with a handy prologue explaining Hellboy's origin: as an infant spawn of Satan he crawled through a trans-dimensional portal opened by Nazis during World War II. The Allied forces manage to sabotage the proceedings, and the baby demon left hiding amongst the ruins is adopted by Professor Bruttenholm (played post-prologue by John Hurt), Professor Roosevelt's occult advisor; he wins the little guy's affection with Baby Ruth bars.

Returning to the present, The Bureau For Paranormal Research and Investigation is trying to keep Hellboy under wraps from the public; he's spent sixty years undercover and is getting antsy to join the outside world -- or, at the very least, to be reunited with the girl he loves. That girl is Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), a young woman who erupts with flame when she gets emotional; she too longs to fit in, and unlike Hellboy, is just human enough to have a chance.

Also on the force is a young agent with "a pure heart" (Ruper Evans) and a psychic merman named Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, with the voice of David Hyde Pierce), who is made up of such an impressive blend of makeup and human dexterity that watching him in action was rather hypnotic.

The plot of the movie concerns the rise of dark forces from Hellboy's past who threaten to take over the world, and in the various attempts to defeat them there is lots of action and battles with with evil beasts; but almost as much time is spent on the characters, primarily Hellboy's relationship with Professor Bruttenholm, whom he regards as a father, and with Liz, whom he pines for with the heartache of a fifteen year old boy. There's a sweet scene where he curls up in bed, crumpling up page after page of attempted love letters.

This is the sort of material Del Toro eats up; every movie he's made has featured things that go bump in the night, dead things in jars, tortured heroes and also the touch of a storyteller who really cares about the tale he's telling. He's one of those directors, like Peter Jackson, who is a true fan of his material, and goes out of his way to do it justice. He won't let a great moment go to waste, and in all his films he creates and exploits a sort of iconography for his characters that result in some unforgettable moments.

Admittedly, there aren't as many of those in this film as one might like. There are some definite weaknesses is in its good vs. conflict. The villains (Carl Roden as Rasputin, Ladislav Beran as a bizarre zombie Nazi, and various puppets and pixels representing heavily tentacled monsters) never completely come to life to the point that their demise is something we're rooting for, and the action scenes, while engaging on the surface, never reach the level of exhileration that virtually every moment of Blade 2 did; this time, he seems far more anxious to get through with the fighting and get back to Hellboy's frustrated search for acceptance. This is a superhero film, yes, but at the end, when Hellboy whispers something in Liz's ear, and we don't hear what it is, I realized that what Del Toro sees in this story is something more akin to Lost In Translation than to X-Men.

And with Perlman in the lead, who can blame him for taking that approach? Perlman, in real life, already looks exactly like Mignola's drawings, and so it's impossible to tell where Rick Baker's amazing makeup ends and the actor begins -- and since Perlman is a talented actor, since Del Toro trusts his characters to flesh and blood thespians and not special effects teams, Hellboy is instantly acceptable. Watching him pine for Liz, one is reminded of the great Beasts who've fallen in love with beauties, like Jean Marais in Cocteau's Beauty In The Beast, or the animated monster in Disney's version of the same tale. Hellboy -- the character, if not entire movie -- ranks with the best of them.