#5: Hellboy (2004)

I am not Del Toro's #1 fan.

I am also not experimenting with new layouts, the formatting is uncooperative today.

He's a very capable ideas man, but those ideas often get lost in fantasy and imagery on the screen. And sure, screen is a very good place to show that, but at some point, you want to stop winding through the woods and get back upon the path.

I've seen "Pacific Rim" (trim off about 20 minutes and we're okay), "The Shape of Water" (Fine) and "Pan's Labyrinth" (Interesting). "The Devil's Backbone" is on the to-watch list, and "Crimson Peak" is not.

So, perhaps since Hellboy is based off of graphic novels (Though I do not know for certain if this movie was directly adapted from one) as opposed to a truly original idea from Del Toro, this may be my favorite of his films.

Let's get it out of the way; The practical costumes and monsters are outstanding. It doesn't look cheesy, it doesn't look old or out of date. It looks fabulous, from Hellboy's prosthetics to Abe Sapien to the antagonistic monsters. I don't know how the 2019 movie is going to stack up but I am interested in seeing it.

That being said, it still feels a lot more like a bunch of asides than it does a comprehensive movie, but because everything is so cool, I didn't care. From Hellboy berating the government stooge, the movie switches to said stooge talking to a woman with powers who abandoned the group for a normal life.