Excellent

Rating: 10/10 (9 July 2008)

I had the pleasure of seeing this last night at the Alamo Draft House screening with not only Guillermo del Toro but Mike Mignola and Doug Jones attending as well. I was a fan of del Toro's work before I got into Hellboy but that was several years before the first movie. This is quite honestly one of the best marriages of both source and original material I could've hoped for. I felt the movie far surpassed the original. It was smarter, funnier, and as visually stunning as anything you can expect from either del Toro or Mignola. The sheer number and variety of fully realized monsters, with the stronger emphasis being on puppetry and make-up as opposed to an over reliance on CGI, is almost astounding in this day and age. The performances were also top notch. It was a little weird to hear Doug Jones's voice actually coming out of Abe Sapien at first but I think it added to the character and Seth McFarlane as the voice of Johann Krauss was a rather inspired gamble that paid off. All in all the best thing I can say that will probably make the strongest impact on the largest number of people is that I would gladly pay to see this movie again and I would recommend it to any of my friends, regardless of how familiar they are or aren't with Hellboy. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.