Hellboy (film)

Guillermo Del Toro has become pretty famous now, with almost everyone having seen Pan's Labyrinth and raved about it. Hellboy is Del Toro's second most well known title (Third once 'the Hobbit' is released) and is an interesting comic book adaptation. Most comic book films seek to become iconic, and really get to the core of what the character/team is about. However, this approach is often faulty, and apart from the recent Batman films, it often misses the point completely (making spider-man whiny, not funny, or making wolverine not 'the best at what he does' and almost completely ruining the character)
The Hellboy films seek not to become the new canon face of the character, but true to the throwaway pulp influences of the comic, to just be fun and engaging. This isn't to say Hellboy is without style, as especially in the second film, an exaggerated cartoonish look has been adopted that along with the high contrast footage makes it an interesting sight. A few glaring errors in physics do jar, and it is obvious that the production company had a little too much say in what happened- focus grouping seems to be the only possible reason they would introduce a young sidekick character.
To my mind, the film's merit is in it's eccentric aspects, and in the way that it doesn't try to do anything really new. It's just fun and flashy, and sometimes that is what I want from a film.