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Michael Elliott (Movie Parables) cautions families not to rush off to this film, due to its focus on paranormal activity and heavy violence. But he adds, "Surprisingly, Christian messages are communicated quite clearly during the course of the film. We don't have horns or a tail, but our story is similar. We were born dead in sins, subject to the god of this world and his evil ways. Our Father loved us enough to give us a choice as well as the ability to turn away from the evil and embrace the good."

William Foote (Christian Spotlight) says, "Hellboy continues the same humanistic world view theme that we have seen so frequently in recent comic book movies, i.e., man is morally good and has the power to prevail over evil."

Mainstream critics are calling Hellboy a better-than-average comic book movie. The film looks likely to earn itself a sequel, if viewers go back for a second round.

This week at Metaphilm, Annie Frisbie goes about interpreting Hellboy as a parable of the way God has made us heirs of his kingdom. "The moral of the story is that adoption trumps nature. Hellboy is not prisoner to the accident of his birth, he is freed by adoption to triumph over his innate evil, and to eradicate that evil from every fiber of his being. When God adopts us, we change entirely. No longer are we creatures of sin, bound to darkness, doomed to fail. We are freed from our birth. We are freed for something great: to be the true heirs of God's promise of salvation."

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