WRITER-DIRECTOR Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy" is surprisingly enjoyable, as adaptations of cult comic books go, thanks to a sense of humor all too rare in the genre, winning performances by Ron Perlman and Selma Blair, and a sweet romance of the kind that made "Spider-Man" a richer experience than its competitors.

But the extreme familiarity of its premise and plot land "Hellboy" firmly in the comic-book tradition.

Indeed, "Hellboy" is basically an occult version of "X-Men," with John Hurt taking the Patrick Stewart role of a fatherly professor with an English accent.

Its lightweight, not-quite-Christian theology of evil seems to borrow from both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the Indiana Jones flicks.

Hellboy is a demon, who was taken as a baby from the depths of hell by the Nazis at the end of World War II with the help of evil Russian monk Grigori Rasputin (yes, he's still alive).

But instead of bringing about the apocalypse for Hitler, Hellboy was rescued by Professor Trevor Broom (Hurt) of the FBI's supersecret Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

Under the professor's tutelage, Hellboy became the key member of a secret team of heroes - including telepathic merman Abe Sapien (voiced by David Hyde Pierce) and "pyrokinetic" firestarter Liz Sherman (Selma Blair).

Enormously strong, with red skin, a tail, a hand made of stone and horns that he files down in order to fit in with other people, the grown-up Hellboy (a perfectly cast Ron Perlman) is now a sardonic, cigar-chomping but sweet-natured testament to nurture over nature.

When he's not bashing or shooting monsters from hell, humanity's demon lifts weights, eats vast amounts of pizza, watches many televisions simultaneously and plays with his beloved cats.

Though he looks like an adult, Hellboy ages more slowly than humans, and his emotions are those of a teenager. He therefore needs careful handling by Broom and by his new FBI partner, John Myers (Rupert Evans), a new academy graduate selected for his discretion and purity of heart.



And both Hellboy and Myers have crushes on Liz Sherman, whose lack of control over her own deadly powers has driven her to leave the BPRD and take up residence in a mental hospital.

But all of them have to leave the BPRD's secret underground hideout in New Jersey to battle Sammael - an almost indestructible evil creature unleashed by Rasputin (Karel Rodin), which has taken to hiding in subway tunnels

Every time Sammael is killed, another two of him are born. And his unleashing on the world marks only the beginning of Rasputin's plan to bring about the end of the world - which also requires bringing Hellboy back to the side of evil.

The task of defeating Rasputin and his minions (including a Nazi ice-maiden and a sword-wielding mandroid with a clockwork heart and sand for blood) is made harder by the obstructive hostility of FBI director Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor).

"Hellboy" is less gory than del Toro's "Blade II," but its violence more than deserves a PG-13 rating.

Unfortunately, the final act in a vast stone complex underneath a Russian cemetery makes less and less sense, as the special effects battles become ever more lavish.