Straight to Hellboy

I love Guillermo del Toro, I quite enjoyed the first Hellboy film, and I am a fan of the comic book genre. In short, I wanted to like Hellboy II, and I was well-primed to have a favorable reaction to the movie. Sadly, I found it mostly stiff and mundane. I had a few good laughs, to be sure, and the creatures and visuals were truly amazing. Hell, on one level it was an enjoyable summer movie and a great way to beat Friday's oppressive heat and humidity. But I found myself cringing at a plot device here or a badly placed bit of dialog there. And the action sequences were so long and so frenetic that they were difficult to watch. To top it all off, I kept thinking that the villain bore an uncanny resemblance to Ted Danson.