Hellboy

The UWM Union Theatre’s semester-opening week continues with a 7 p.m. screening tonight of Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy, an ambitious adaptation of Mike Mignola’s fantasy-action comic that flaunts the same imaginative visuals as the director’s more serious works, including his lauded Pan’s Labyrinth. The premise is fundamentally absurdthe hero is a bright-red demon who fights demons for a supernatural government agencybut del Toro deftly injects a lot of heart into the story while playing off its fundamental ridiculousness. It’s not an art film, by any stretch of the imagination, but it is artfully done.