HELLBOY II reviews are strong

After a wonderful start to the Summer with the refreshing superhero movie Iron Man, a quick and sudden collapse of the blockbuster season occurred with Indiana Jones, Speed Racer (though I haven't seen it to be fair but from what I've seen... ridiculous), Hancock and The Incredible Hulk disappointing and as what seems to be the common phrase these days, they all... "nuked the fridge". It's amazing to me how the Summer blockbuster has fallen so quickly in the last few years and how a movie like Hancock can unashamedly decide to kill any chance of it being an ambitious and worthwhile film from what was originally written in favour of getting asses on seats. But we say our prayers for the few masters we still have. People like Guillermo del Toro, a massive OWF favourite and his sequel to the excellent 2004 adaptation of Hellboy, which if it's as good as the original... it will be a delight in a less than delightful blockbuster season so far.

Here's the critics response, first from Emmanuel Levy who gave it a Solid B - praising the visuals but not so much the story...

Guillermo Del Toro gives full expression to his boundless visual imagination and darkly humorous sensibility. For these very reasons, you are likely to disregard the fact that the story and characters occasionally get lost in the endless spectacle of special effects, most of which are highly original, truly eye-popping, and vastly amusing.

Variety's John Andersen also claims the reason HellboyII works so well is it's director...

But the reason the movie plays so well has nothing to do with the leading man's paternal instincts; rather, it's rooted in del Toro's rococo instincts for the stylishly creepy and crawlingly macabre, his clockmaker's preoccupation with detail, and a flair for combining state-of-the-art technology with his taste for the antique, the gothic, the Catholic. Not to disparage the f/x guys, but what's onscreen in "Hellboy II" is all about the seismic eruptions in del Toro's head. Comparing his work to most fantasy cinema is like comparing cave drawings to the Cathedral of Cologne.

AICN'S Moriarty also praises the visuals...

Visually, HELLBOY II is a feast, one of the summer€™s richest and most engrossing experiences. After PAN€™S LABYRINTH, it€™s like some floodgates deep inside Guillermo opened up, and the result is this deluge of imagination, an amazing array of sights and sounds that weren€™t just created to dazzle you.

Currently the movie is scoring a very encouraging 90% fresh rating from 21 reviews counted on Rotten Tomatoes, which is two negative reviews. Though I have just noticed a third go up at Rope of Silicon, where Brad Brevet didn't like it. All reviews, good or bad seem to home in on the lack of story and characters... in favour of monsters and creatures. I read one review somewhere which said the movie was like seeing the Cantina scene in Star Wars for the first time, which I have to say made my face contort a wide smile. After seeing all the ambition taken out of some good concepts this Summer, I need Hellboy to be a success. Sadly we won't be getting our eyes fixated on del Toro's new monstrous creatures until next month in the U.K, long after The Joker has terrorized Gotham and Wall-E has landed in this country but for the U.S. it opens this weekend... let us know what you thought of it!