Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Admirable film.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Not being a fan of the Hellboy franchise I might be a bit bias here but I gave this animated effort a go and walked away rather unimpressed.First of all I was struck how childish it all was, this is closer to a Saturday morning cartoon than an anime or anything of Hellboys general demographic.Thankfully the full movie cast do in fact reprise their roles which certainly gets it points.The story however gets few, being an over convoluted tale of Japanese demons trapped within a samurai sword.The fanbase is clearly there, writing this in 2017 and people are still pining for a third movie.I'd say this is one for the Hellboy fans and the Hellboy fans alone.The Good: Original cast The Bad: Liz & Abe look weird Story simply isn't very good Weirdly "Kiddie" Things I Learnt From This Movie:Nothing, I just had it reconfirmed that I find Hellboy a bit of a bore

Cartoon TV movies are not uncommon in the world of popular characters. Several icons have had theatrical runs and then later on are moved to TV movies. Some stuck with live-action, while others turned to different methods. For Guillermo Del Toro's Hellboy (2004), animation was the next route. For a few reasons, it's understandable to why this was the definitive choice. First and foremost, animation is cheaper than live- action. The second reason would be the demographic. If it's a cartoon, there's a good chance more children would end up seeing it. A third possible reason was to see if it would turn into a series. A perfect example of this would be the TV movie / Direct-to-DVD release of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2000). After its success, the cartoon became a running TV series on the Disney Channel. It's interesting because this could have been like that but there are some things holding it back too.It's difficult to say what time this installment of Hellboy takes place. Since Dr. Broom (Hellboy's father) is not shown, it is assumed that it takes place after the first theatrical film. When a magical katana sword possesses the body of a Japanese Sword Historian, Hellboy, Liz and Abe Sapien are brought in. However, this doesn't exactly make it that much more exciting story wise. The story is about Hellboy taking on another spirit creature but it feels very detached from its predecessor. Just because it's not live-action doesn't mean the story can't continue from the events of the last movie. The back-story to the mystical katana sword is a bit cliché but not too dull to be bored with. The section of writing that suffers the most is the plot. Hellboy ends up being caught up in a mystical world where he has to find his way out and it takes up the majority of the movie. This is where it feels slow - even for a little over 70 minutes.Another problem in this feature is the animation itself. The flow of how the characters move isn't that smooth. The mouth work to the voice acting looks rather rigid as well. And what's with Hellboy's design? A huge upper torso and scrawny goat legs? I think that could be evened out a little more. An element that doesn't need any fixing however is the level that this cartoon sets itself at. Meaning, it's edgy. Not edgy enough to have curvaceous women in it, but it does have some disturbing images, close to heavy violence and several swears. This is good and all but it does bring into question if this film was made for children. If it was made for children, all the things mentioned prior should've been toned down. And if it was for adults, it should've been made like the HBO Spawn series. The action and creature designs are note worthy though. Dark and creepy cartoons are not as common among animation movies so that's a plus.For voice acting is definitely smart of the casting department to grab ahold of Ron Perlman and Selma Blair. Their voices can't be replaced. The same also should've gone for David Hyde Pierce who voiced Abe Sapien from the live-action run. Nothing on Doug Jones who was the physical representation of Abe, but Pierce has always been the voice of scientific sounding characters. Jones' voice as his own character doesn't accomplish that same feat. Phil LaMarr also has a few voice roles too. Listen for him. The score composed by Christopher Drake is well done. His tracks represent the scenes properly and he also maintains the establish recognizable theme Marco Beltrami had created from the first movie. That is commendable considering most composers either ignore or forget these key pieces. Its fun but not engaging enough like the original.It provides some of the same quality like the original with its returning cast of voices, edgy action, grotesque creatures and music, but its writing isn't as polished. The story elements aren't as captivating as they were from before.

After a professor opens an enchanted scroll, the BPRD have to face the threat of two gods(Storm and Lightning) returning, and awakening their brothers, the dragons, and ending the reign of man on Earth. Hellboy himself(who spends almost all of this isolated from the others, on a sort of spirit quest, defeating a handful of fairly distinguished mythical creatures from Asian folklore - spiders, cannibalism, those kinds of things... admittedly, that does lead to this having a video-game structure, with just one fight sequence after another, and there is only minimal connection between them; they just wanted a lot of these beings in the same production) has to protect the titular sword, which holds the power to release the duo. Abe and Liz are together on a mission, supporting each other and developing their relationship, with her having to deal with her powers(in that they are extremely useful, yet they make her feel like, as she puts it, "a freak") and him going far to help keep her safe. This is roughly 78 minutes, including the short end credits. Having not read the comics, I can't say if this lives up to the source material. The style appears to be pretty similar, and certainly quite non-threatening. Animation is nice, with some visual ingenuity and use of colors to set tone(this is effective at being creepy, at establishing mood and at very sharp turns in our perception of something as a positive or negative presence) if nothing terribly creative about the camera-work and editing(considering the possibilities, when one doesn't have the laws of physics that constrict live features). The voice acting is well-done. This gets some extra appeal to those of us who only know these great characters from the movies by it being the same trio, and they make the transition well(Perlman is just as enjoyable here as in the flicks, and steals the show here, as well). I suppose you could argue that Blair sounds slightly off, and slightly overdoing it here and there. The plot is sufficiently engaging and there is a fair balance between eerie, mysterious beings and the like and explanation so you aren't completely weirded out. This is well-paced, you're not bored and there's a solid amount of action, as well as catching up on what's going on, with consistently rising stakes throughout. The humor comes very naturally to it and is genuinely funny. Dialog is very well-written. We change locations numerous times, and you don't get bored with the setting. And yes, Red does get to swing that blade a bit. One could probably follow this reasonably going into it blind, not knowing who these people are, etc. The DVD comes with slightly longer extras put together than the picture itself: An informational commentary track by Mike Mignola, Tad Stones, Phil Weinstein, and interesting featurettes: 42 and a half minute Keepers of Hellboy(the first scene of the film, then a panel of the creators of this at a con), To Hell & Back(10 minutes), Conquering Hellboy: The Actor's Role(6 and a half minutes), View From The Top(5 and a half minutes), A New Breed(5 minutes), Hellboy Goes East: Tail Spin(3 minutes), Hellboy Goes East: Samurai Songs(3 minutes), Hellboy Goes East: Prop Prefecture(2 and a half minutes) and Hellboy Goes East: Origins(2 and a half minutes). There is violent and disturbing content in this. I recommend this to fans of the franchise. 7/10

i really liked this movie i felt that it captured the spirit of the both the comics and the movie. The animation in this movie is nearly spot on but is still good in it's own way the story is nice and easy to follow and has some good action sequences that hellboy is famous for. I was pleasantly surpirsed to find out that all the acotrs from the movie did voice work for there characters in this movie i was a little upset to find out that doug jones only did the movement for ape in the first movie as i felt he did a great job doing voice work. The designs for this movie look amazing even tho it's animation i really thought that those were really locations overall this is a good spin off film that really enjoyed watching.