I have been waiting for this movie for such a long time, and managed to access to a preview of this movie in UK cinemas about a week ago, however, I was so glad that I managed to actually get a seat for this movie as I was certainly not disappointed.

As with all my movie reviews, I shall give you an honest opinion of the movie, going through both its good and bad points.  Now, to start with, and I must write this before I forget, I had a major issue with the contingency of the movie, centering around the character Abe Sapian.

Those of you familiar to this series of comic know that Abe is a water inhabitant that in order to survive out in the open must wear the water equivilant of an oxygen tank…though its not exaclty a water tank, but anyway I digress.  For the first half hour of the movie, Abe wears this tank when both in the Headquarters and the outside world…however, randomly, part way through the movie seems to decide that he can actually breathe oxygen and the water tank disappears for the rest of the movie.

See, in all honesty, this isnt even a small inconsistancy…in fact, its actually a pretty large one.  Thing is some people are saying its because he randomly got some kind of small adapter, however something like this would need to be explained and would really only go hand in hand with Red getting a new weapon…which by the way he does not.

And now that my rant is over I shall go on to talk about the actaul film and story itself.  Now most people seem to have mixed feelings about this movie.  I quite simply really, really liked it.  It’s not often I find myself actually laughing at this type of movie, and enjoying it, but I did.  In fact its one of those rare Dark Knight occassions, and probably the last for the year as more Hollywood drivvel prepares to hit the big screens.

The acting is this movie was brillant, and the guy that plays the Prince, superb.  The make up was awesome and very believeable on such characters as Red.  And as for Ron Perlman, that guy is highly under-rated as an actor and an action hero.  In fact most people seem to forget he was in Alien Resurrection and Blade II…in fact, seems he likes to be in sequals…hmm.

I was however disappointed that David Hyde-Pierce didn’t do the voice of Abe Sapien unlike in the first movie, a voice that definitely suited the character, however the voice acting was above par, and if you hadn’t seen the previous movie, then you honestly won’t care.

Also, a new addition to the Hellboy cast was the infamous and brilliant Seth MacFarlane doing the voice of the robot whom I believe was called Krauss…though I am not entirely sure of the accuracy of that statement.  Anyway, his character was completely different the usual Family Guy and American dad that MacFarlane has introduced us to over the past few years, and I was pleasantly suprised at the limitless acting skills that this man possesses.

The story to this new movie was very interesting and successfully managed to keep my attention for the majority of the film, with the random comedy scenes, great action scenes and fantastic general story telling.  And even though there will be a lot of people who will disagree with my opinion of this movie, I actually don’t care.  This is one of those movies that you will either love or hate, and for me this is defintely one of the best movies I have seen all year…not that there have been many contenders.

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With the release of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, I decided to take it upon myself to watch the Gotham Knight series in anticipation to my trip to the cinema.

For those of you who are unaware, Gotham Knight is a 75 minute collection of animations, that are seperated into six chapters that are intended to be viewed as a whole, that explore Bruce Wayne’s transition from his beginning as a tormented vigilantee to The Dark Knight of a crumbling metropolis.

Now, in truth, I should inform you that I am not a huge Batman fan. I have in fact watched all of them since the days of Michael Keaton, however, the Val Kilmer series of Batman movies left me feeling slightly dead inside, with the poor Arnie puns (”Ice to see you”) and poor choice of characters.  And it was this series of film that made me lose all hope in the series, despite thoroughly enjoying the Michael Keaton series of movies.

However, with the recent release of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, my faith was restored in the series, and I decided to lower my defenses and actually watch the anime/cartoon of the Batman Saga.  And even though I did lose faith in the series in the past, my faith has been restored, and I found myself even impressed by this anime movie/series.

Initial impressions of the Gotham Knight made me remember the Animatrix series, the style was very similar.  Each chapter uses a different art form and style, however, please don’t think that this movie is as poorly made as the Animatrix.  In fact, I found the story compelling and unique.  The art style pretty in places and unique in style.  This is one of the few movie follow-ups that I hav found myself truly enjoying.

Gotham Knight is full of action and plot, and in one story in particular, it shows how people can interpret Batman in different ways, allowing their imagination to go wild.  It’s a nice breath of fresh air for a dying industry in Hollywood.

Though, as always I do have my issues with the series.  For example, as much as I like to see new tools and gadgets, some of the chapters do seem to lack in the action scenes.  Sometimes, all I wanted to see was Batman foiling evil plots, and disposing of the bad guys one by one, however, a lot of the time the fight scenes were short, if not absent.

But this is a nice change from the usual drivvel that comes from the movie industry and I really enjoyed watching this.  I think it was also more enjoyable as I had yet to see The Dark Knight (which by the way is AWESOME!!!!) and it all added to the anticipation of the film.

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