I just got back from seeing this.
I thought it was pretty good but it left a couple of questions unanswered.
I would have also liked to have seen more variety in the monsters.
I also agree that they should have come up with something better than squids

so a movie I should see, but immediatly get my ass back into the comic deal?

As someone who has read the actual Dark Horse series, I found it surprisingly dark and faithful to its roots.

And I completely disagree about the lack of varying monsters, because quite simply, the squid-like monsters were some of the best visual interpretations of H.P. Lovecraft' s work caught on film.

Brian Yuzna and Stuart Gordon would be proud.

I' m not saying it was bad I just think having 6 or 7 squids being the briningers of the apocolypse was kinda gay. I mean really, squids?! Wtf? Have like massive demonic creatures of doom that take Hellboy' s looks way above and beyond. Squids just seem like a crappy " devil" .

Clearly, you don' t read enough H.P. Lovecraft. Del Toro, rather than deviate from the text and create more mainstream Hell-ish visuals (such as demons), stayed true to Mignola' s work. He gets credit for that. The Seven Gods of Chaos are truly an inspiration from Lovecraft and Del Toro who has blended horror and action before, appreciates Lovecraft' s work as much as Mignola does.

That' s the beauty of the comic. It blends so much mythology into an ongoing series. You do have giant beasts of Lovecraftian proportions. And you also have giant fiery beasts that are forever damned. You' ve also got zombies. And leprechauns. Fairies. And voodoo. Try cramming that into one two-hour film.

Hopefully, now that a sequel has been greenlit, they' ll do Lobster Johnson justice and cast Bruce Campbell in his role. Then we' d get to see Hellboy fight off a horde of fake humans and the like. Good stuff.

I was hoping for an adaptation of " Pancakes" , in where the Allies feed Hellboy as a baby pancakes for the first time. He is reluctant at first, but eats one and it becomes one of his favorite meals. The entire underbelly of Hell cries out loud, saying that he shall never return, for he has eaten the pancake.

I' ve got a few gripes with the film. One, the actor that plays Rasputin is very mediocre. He was mediocre as the villain in Blade II and he' s mediocre in this. Rasputin is one of Hellboy' s fiercest, most despised rivals and he' s easily defeated and not very intimidating in this. Kroenen steals all his screen presence.

Second, I felt it was unfair to shelve Abe Sapien in the second half of the film to devote the rest to a character not even in the comics. Agent Meyers was a great add-on and he fits with the mythos, but I really think it shouldn' t be at the sake of cutting out a character like Abe.

Unfortunately, not everything can go perfectly. Pound for pound, this is probably the most faithful adaptation of the genre and I liked it a lot.

Strong words Federman (In a good way though) I havnt had time lately to see it, i' ll probally just wait till it comes out on dvd.

Too true about the Lovecraftian influences. I felt as if I was seeing Cthulu for the very first time. The scenes in the movie that show what the future could be were amazing. Del Toro continues to grow in my opinion as one of the best directors, at least action film wise in the business.