YMMV / Hellboy (2004)

• Awesome Music:
  • Marco Beltrami provides a memorable soundtrack fitting for a story of uncanny adventure, mystery, tragedy and bittersweet romance, particularly the main theme, "B.P.R.D." "Father's Funeral" and "Stand By Your Man". Danny Elfman's efforts for the sequel are much appreciated, but some lamented Beltrami not returning and would've liked it if at least Elfman incorporated some of his predecessor's work into his score.
  • "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave is used shortly after (adult) Hellboy's introduction, as the B.P.R.D. team are called to the library that housed Sammael.
    They're whisperin' his name through this disappearing land/But hidden in his coat is a red right hand
• Better on DVD: The first film had an extended edition, which added on some character development.
• Engaging Chevrons: Parodied when a guy with a high-tech flamethrower backpack goes through a long, drawn-out start-up sequence, only to be eaten by the thing he's trying to kill before he can use it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kroenen, for being an Adaptational Badass and Creepy Awesome clockwork zombie.
  • Sergeant Whitman, who becomes Fire-Forged Friends with Broom in the Action Prologue, is either this or a One-Scene Wonder.
  • Among the Red Shirt agents, Clay is one who some fans feel attached to while watching him fight for his life, mainly due to his humorous conversation with Hellboy about Clay's new hair plugs.
• Evil Is Cool: Karl Ruprecht Kroenen is so different from his comic-book counterpart he almost comes across as a different character altogether, yet you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't find him an absolute badass thanks to being a creepily silent, near-unstoppable, undead cyborg assassin who wears a Badass Longcoat and is a Master Swordsman. Pretty much everything you'd want out of a dark fantasy superhero movie villain.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In this film, Professor Broom has a terminal cancer diagnosis and thus knows his days are numbered. His performer, John Hurt, eventually succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2017.
• Magnificent Bastard: Grigori Rasputin is the agent of the Ogdru-Jahad on Earth, and the ultimate villain of the film. Responsible for summoning Hellboy in the first place during World War II, Rasputin returns from death sixty years after the fact in order to oversee the next stage of his plan, manipulating Liz into returning to the B.P.R.D., reviving Sammael the Desolate One, infiltrating the B.P.R.D. with Kroenen, and using the murder of Professor Bruttenholm to bring Hellboy to Moscow. Luring the B.P.R.D. team into his mausoleum, Rasputin subdues them all, and offers Hellboy a veritable Deal with the Devil, promising to return the soul he has stolen from Liz in exchange for Hellboy choosing to summon the Ogdru-Jahad and end the world. Killed when this plan fails, Rasputin's last act is to gloat as Behemoth, an agent of the Ogdru-Jahad, uses his body to enter the world, proving with yet another death, that his own mortality is still no obstacle to his plans.
• Narm: In the extended cut the resurrected Rasputin has empty eye sockets and has to put on fake eyeballs which are just Itchy & Scratchy-looking Nightmare Retardant.
• Narm Charm: When Hellboy's fighting Sammael in the subway, he also has to protect a lady's box of kittens. It's completely ridiculous and contrived, and yet very endearing.
• Periphery Demographic: The first film received a good review from Focus on the Family, of all people.
• Retroactive Recognition: Corporal Matlin in the prologue is played by future member of The Six Idiots, Jim Howick.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Liz's Dark and Troubled Past memory that Rasputin uses to trigger her powers and blow up the asylum. In the flashback, young Liz is utterly terrified when her fire powers manifest after getting wounded by a group of bullies and actually tries to warn them to stay away, only to wipe them out in a fiery explosion... which carries on into the present causing her to destory an institute with all the patients and innocent doctors in it.
  • Everything surrounding the death of Professor Broom. He is slowly dying of cancer and struggles to have Hellboy accept Myers as his new partner, as he wants the young agent to become his successor at guiding Red once he'll pass away. In his final moments, even after Rasputin tells him that Red will fulfill his Antichrist destinity and gives him a vision of the horrors to come, Broom still refers to him as his own son, with no regrets of the time spent mentoring Red and making him a good person even if the Big Bad will undo it all and bring upon The End of the World as We Know It. His murder takes such a toll on Hellboy that Liz tells Abe that he is mourning by refusing to eat or talk with anybody for days, both being O.O.C. Is Serious Business.
  • Ilsa's final moments with Rasputin can invoke some Alas, Poor Villain tears when you really think about it: here's these people who have given up on thier humanity to serve demonic gods of destruction and spent over 60 years reworking the plan, only for it to be foiled again, but instead of going through a clichéd and predictable Villainous Breakdown, Ilsa quietly comes to Rasputin's side to take comfort in their love for each other before getting crushed to death by Behemoth and being presumably condemned for their abominable actions. "Hell will hold no surprises for us!"
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Guillermo del Toro made it, so this is a given. The film makes extensive use of both Practical Effects and CGI and it looks very cool; the make-up used for the title character and Abe Sapien is especially convincing. It's even more impressive considering it had a relatively small budget.

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