Hollywood trashes another talented director

Rating: 3/10 (12 July 2008)

I liked the first "Hellboy" and, of course, "Pan's Labyrinth" is one of the greatest fantasy films ever made. No one can deny Guillermo del Toro has an exceptional visual imagination, but the script here is such a copy (that's a compliment) of the formula Peter Jackson used for the "Ring Trilogy" that things quickly become, uh, stupid.
It's baffling that any film critic would have seen this and not blasted it for it's lack of originality. I'm not sure del Toro can recoup from this, but hopefully he'll have made enough money that he can chose his own projects. This material needs jokes about Cuban cigars, the "f" word, and Barry Manilow songs as much as the "Ring Trilogy" did.
Staggeringly dumb.