It's overdue movie review time!

Last week I saw a film I normally never would have seen -- "Hellboy."

It's about a genuine devil boy brought into this world through a portal to Hell installed by Nazi occultists, whose plot to rule as Satanic lackeys was foiled at the last minute by US forces under the control of a rather kindly military attache from the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. The latter saved the baby devil from being shot by U.S. troops, raising him in a benevolent Christian (if paranormal) home, so he can spend his time literally fighting the good fight, battling demons and various dark forces. His slender, psychicly gifted sidekick is a cross between C3PO and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. (More the former than the latter; even down to the voice and, um, mannerisms?)

The film is very popular with the young kids (so forget about seeing it in silence!), and the technical effects do more than bring a comic book fantasy to life; they make it seem almost believable.

Hellboy kicks ass bigtime; he loves to destroy monsters and demons, and keeps his horns ground down for esthetic reasons. But he's very casual about the way he destroys demons; it's a little amusing for him, but a fierce, almost hubristic pride in his work makes him the best. Rough as he is, he manages to fall in love with a very "hot" girl. (When she gets mad, she bursts into huge flames which engulf and devour. But no flames can burn the fireproof Hellboy except the flames of love. As a devil, he's a loser. As a hero, he's very much a Clint Eastwood type, except darker, more aloof, more cynical.)

I immediately understood why the film is such a hit with the kids: it's a classic struggle -- internal and external -- between the forces of good and the forces of evil, and its popularity is an embarrassing indictment of the post-modernist, deconstructionist drivel the kids have been raised on.

You'd think their elders would have learned by now; without good and evil, the world is simply boring!

Any child could tell you that, I guess.

But don't ask me; I don't have children.

Despite the good and evil theme, I doubt this film would be popular with anyone subscribing to strict religious dogma -- especially adherents to the predestination doctrine. Hellboy was supposed to have started the war prophesied in Revelation, but when his destiny is finally made clear to him by the resurrected Rasputin (just as the portal to Hell is reopened), he tears off the newly sprouted horns, and sides with good.

Infuriated, Rasputin screams, "Now you'll never realize your destiny!"

Putting aside the absurdity of the logic, I rather enjoy the idea that predestination is evil, and that true good comes in a climate of free will, and free choice.

Our enemies need to know that.

So do our friends.

UPDATE: JUSTIN CASE OPINES -- Hellboy is "a quintessential American. Like Superman he's an immigrant. Casts off the tired old morals of his ancestral stomping ground but reinvents himself! Why should he be another Prince of Darkness just because his daddy was?" (I know what you're driving at, Justin --a "Caste" system? It's too late -- Justin's done enough. Thanks!)

MORE ON FREEDOM: The debate goes on. George Weigel, who's a Senior Fellow at Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, thinks there is a "fundamental division over the nature of freedom."

"If the argument for freedom as personal willfulness ('my way') prevails, it seems likely that abortion will remain unrestricted, the biotech industry virtually unregulated, and 'marriage' will mean, eventually, any configuration of (perhaps any number of) consenting adults," he wrote.

If, on the other hand, "the argument prevails that freedom means freely choosing what we can know to be morally good, there may be a real chance to accelerate the building of a culture of life in America."

"If a man must do what he is told to do by the party, then he is absolutely free." -- Mao

UPDATE: Michele has a Hellboy action figure doll. Now I'm jealous.

MORE: Roger L. Simon also links to the Hellboy action figure at his blog.

I knew I'd seen that cover before. (And I'm pretty sure it was at Cody's Books in Berkeley...)

But what is the cosmic significance of Hellboy standing on it?