thank you thank you Del Toro

Rating: 9/10 (12 July 2008)

What a wonderful display of this director's talents -- love love love all the clockworks in this movie; if imagination is a machine, Del Toro's is an incredibly complex, Goldbergesque windup of gargantuan size. How nice, too, to have such a wonderful ensemble of characters -- Hellboy himself is one helluva scene-stopper, but he in no way overpowers any of the others. They feed on each other -- and every single one of them is fully formed and three dimensional -- even the dimensionless gaseous ectoplasm. The movieworld universe has been immeasurably enriched! Hellboy originally was visually stunning, but Del Toro really has surpassed himself. He's even managed to surpass his own work in Pan's Labyrinth. Amazing. Simply Amazing.