Hellboy (12A)

The latest comic hero to get the bat, cat, super, spider man/woman makeover, Hellboy should have been called Tandoorithing.

His brooding scorched red face glows angrily against the rest of the set.

His devil tail and oversized stone hand stop him fitting in with humans, but to make things less obvious he's filed his horns down, leaving two scratched stumps.

Hellboy was 'born' in Scotland in ther Second World War when the Nazis, with the help of Russian mystic Rasputin, opened a portal to the demon world.

The baby devilchild was supposed to start the apocalypse, but Allied troops got hold of him and, under the care of his 'Dad' Professor Broom, he grew into a superstrong and sulky US government employee, charged with secretly cleaning up monsters.

Sixty years after the war Rasputin returns with his Darth Vaderish sidekick to let all hell loose again.

Hellboy, his FBI minder, a C3PO-like merman and a flame-spouting girl Liz (Blair) set out to stop the world being overrun with tentacles and slime.

Ron Perlman's cliff-like face and one-liners bring a brusque humanity to Hellboy. Torn by his love for Liz, he watches in adolescent horror as she gets close to a young agent.

Making comics human was best done in Superman and the last Spiderman, but Hellboy, tugging on a cigar in his grubby trenchcoat, is an endearing superhero.

Writer-director Guillermo Del Toro has left too many yawning gaps in the action, supporting characters are shallow and the film could use a few more plotlines. But the dark atmosphere and Hellboy himself help save this from the flames.

Mono rating: six out of ten