Alden Bates' Weblog

Much as when I went to see The Clone Wars, I opted to go to see Hellboy II on the weekend at the Ascot in Upper Hutt. And the same thing happened - there were unsupervised children constantly running up and down the stairs and chattering loudly during the movie.

As to the movie itself, it's a worthy successor to the first Hellboy movie. It's no Dark Knight, of course, because Hellboy is not about deep plots and symbolism, it's about Hellboy beating the tar out of things, but there was enough plot there to be fairly engaging and it even mostly made sense.

Of course, the area the film really wins in is character design and realisation, and the increasingly blurring line between CGI and physical effects. The creatures, and there are many, are all unique and well characterised. The behind-the-scenes features on the inevitable DVD should be quite interesting.

Johann Krauss is the coolest German ever. Can we keep him? Assuming there's a Hellboy 3 (and hopefully there will be!) of course.