THE THING about comic book heroes is that as scary or strange as they are "on duty", when you take away the masks and capes, the stretchy, sticky accoutrements of their trade, they are human and, usually, handsome. Hellboy is neither. He's a demon, straight out of hell. And as he so succinctly puts it: "I know I'm ugly".

The action and special effects of Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (released this Wednesday) play second fiddle to its exploration of what it means to be different. Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and his colleagues at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence are a rum bunch, who in other films would probably be the villains. Along with the cigar‑chomping red devil himself, there's a walking amphibian, a gaseous gent held together by a diving suit and Hellboy's pyrotechnic girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), who approximates to a human, albeit one who has conveniently fallen for the only partner she won't incinerate when excited.

The sequel's main development is in the growing pains of the couple's relationship and in Hellboy's increasing awareness that the population he protects from supernatural nasties sees him as a freak. In this emotionally strong core, and in the design of the underworld creatures that threaten to usurp humanity, the film touches base with Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Yet, just as "Red" doesn't take himself too seriously, nor does Del Toro, and the pervading tone of the film is one of comic fantasy. "What's going on?" growls our hero as he enters a crime scene. "Oh, it's Friday: big growling monsters."

Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow, arguably the two biggest comedy franchises in Hollywood, have to date peddled separate, quite different paths. As an actor, Sandler provides a nasal, slightly goofy everyman persona for what might be called chummy comedies (rudeness and slapstick, with a coating of sentimentality). As writer, producer and sometime director, Apatow oversees an empire of full-on, male-oriented bad taste, as evidenced in Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Arguably, both men were getting stale.

But now they've teamed up. And as co-writers of Don't Mess With The Zohan, they've found a synergy that livens up their CVs. The tale of an Israeli commando who travels to New York to pursue his dream of being a hairdresser, working wonders for Arab-Israeli relations in the process, is preposterous, ribald and over-the-top, but in none of the ways to which we've become accustomed. As such the film is oddly inspired.

The film moves, cleverly, in comic phases. The first involves the cute joke that a Rambo-like one-man army wants nothing more than to style hair, making people "silky smooth". The second phase, when Zohan gets his chance in downtown Manhattan, subverts the usual gay-bashing approach to hairdressing comedies, instead founding Zohan's success on his highly hetero desire to mix sex with styling - with not young, but elderly clientele queueing around the block for his "cut and bang".

The third involves the local Arab community, who call in the Palestinian terrorist Phantom (John Turturro) to kill Zohan, before both sides recognise their common ground, including the fact that to many Manhattanites, Jews and Arabs elicit the same fear and loathing. Politically it is, of course, naive, although I admire the effort. It's about time mainstream, non-PC comedy abandoned white, male sexual inadequacy and aimed itself at something serious.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day is the sort of film that usually irritates the hell out of me: set in a 1930s milieu of hedonistic, narcissistic upper-class twits, presented in a self-consciously "effervescent" style (it's all those champagne bubbles, don't you know) and without any of Evelyn Waugh's satirical bite. That this never overstays its welcome, however, is due to a strain of unexpected seriousness, emanating from a wonderful actress on very good form.

Frances McDormand plays the governess whose rigid high-mindedness has made her unemployable. One person too self-involved to take offence is a wannabe actress Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), who needs a "social secretary" to ensure that her numerous boyfriends don't meet. Rising star Adams, who made her name in the fairy-tale romance Enchanted, fails to make us like her shallow manipulator, as she ought. But McDormand, whose natural feistiness always informs her characters, lends weight and poignant appeal to her fish-out-of-water moralist.

A long, long time ago, we thought we'd finally seen the end of Star Wars. Sadly, George Lucas just can't put his space saga behind him. And having drained the live-action options, he's now turned to animation. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is plucked from that point in the history when Anakin Skywalker is still a dashing hero, before crossing to the Dark Side.

As animation, this doesn't have the technical or narrative ambitions of a Pixar or Disney movie. It might appeal to a certain kind of buff, who can't get enough droids and clones in his life, or those children suggested by the PG certificate, for whom the Star Wars mythology will, ironically, mean nothing.