Hellboy (Ron Perlman) was born in the fiery depths of you-know-where. In 1944 as a tiny Hellbaby, he's brought to our world through a portal of evil opened by Rasputin (Karel Roden) and two of his Nazi buddies, but before they can get their hands on him he is rescued by the benevolent Dr. Broom (John Hurt). Reared in Broom's Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), Hellboy grows up with some other "special kids" -- such as the aquaman-like creature Abe Sapien (embodied by Doug Jones, voiced by David Hyde Pierce), and Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), a telekinetic fire-starter. As they've grown up, the superheroes have had to try and come to terms with the fantastic powers that prove time and again to be both a blessing and a curse. Enter Agent Myers (Rupert Evans), the young and earnest FBI agent who soon becomes Hellboy's rival for Liz's affections. On top of all this angst is the fact that Rasputin and his henchmen haven't given up on having Hellboy for themselves -- to attract his attention and lure him out, they unleash a horrible self-resurrecting hellhound who is beyond indestructible. The creature is like the a pesky gray hair -- you pluck one, and two more grow in its place.

As directed by longtime fan of the Hellboy comic book series, Guillermo del Toro, the story moves right along with plenty of in-your-face-action, tempered with getting-to-know-you character interplay. Perlman is the perfect personification of the wisecracking yet wistful Hellboy. Despite the heavy prosthetic makeup, it's impossible to imagine another actor in the role; the life-experience and the pathos shine brilliantly and intently from the actor's eyes and when he walks in our world he becomes a living, breathing part of it. The monsters are suitably scary, pushing the horror elements just slightly ahead of the science fiction and fantasy aspect of the story.

This two-disc set (there will be another "special edition" coming out in a few months, showing an extended cut of the film) is chock full 'o extras. I am a big del Toro fan and I really enjoyed Hellboy when I saw it on the big screen, but there's too much on this DVD even for me to process in one sitting. For example, the "Making of" featurette is longer than the feature film!

Here's what you can expect:

Commentary by director Guillermo del Toro and co-executive producer Mike Mignola: del Toro usually does his commentaries by himself, which I prefer. When he's sharing the stage with someone else, his remarks aren't quite as absorbing. However, Mignola is interesting enough to keep pace with del Toro and I do think it was right to include him.

Commentary by Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Rupert Evans, and Jeffrey Tambor: this commentary is pretty loopy and kind of fun, but not worth listening to throughout the entire movie.

All-new DVD comics: eight branching DVD comics by Mike Mignola

"Hellboy: The Seeds of Creation": 27 documentaries: yep, 27 documentaries, totaling 2+ hours! This featurette is presented in a cinema verité style, which didn't work for me at all. Watching people sitting there, taking several minutes to look over and approve ideas of concepts during pre-production is not my idea of fun. But if it's your idea of fun, you'll love it. It really shows all of the work and attention to detail that goes into making a movie of this scope.

"Right Hand of Doom: Set Visits" behind-the-scenes branching feature: this plays whenever you press an icon that pops up during the movie. It shows you, for example, the training sessions for the big fight scene in the beginning, cutting away from the actual fight scene as filmed.

Four short films featuring the cartoons Hellboy himself recommends

Feature-length storyboard track: I really, really dislike storyboard featurettes already so for one go run the length of the movie?  I don't think so!

Four computer-generated animated scene breakdowns

Five Board-a-Matics: side-by-side comparison of scenes with the animated storyboards

Three deleted scenes with optional commentary: These scenes were somewhat interesting, but definitely not necessary to the plot

Scene deconstruction

DVD-ROM: director's notebook, printable script, script supervisor's book

(by Staci Layne Wilson)