Hellboy II But First An Issue

I want to talk about Hellboy II but first I'm going to discuss labeling, because for some reason I've been thinking about it lately and have two discussions about it in the two days-which is odd.
First up: Mommy Bloggers. This is a term that my friend D said was being used to describe Moms with kids who have blogs (the Moms have blogs, not the kids). This term falls into the same category as Soccer Moms, Career Girls and Cougars. These are all fairly shallow labels used to describe a group and it certainly doesn't allow for individuality. It terms each woman into a thing, a label without viewing her as a person. And here's the thing-when was the last time you heard a group of men referred to in this way? There seems to be a plethora of stay-at-home Dads, but there's no snappy two-word phrase to describe them. I have heard the term "confirmed bachelor" for a man who has never married, although I always thought that was a code term for gay. And "cougar"? Is that just a code for older woman who likes sex? What is that? Older men who like sex get no phrase because society views it as a normal state of affairs but an older woman-oooooh. And this bothers me because I AM an older woman, even though I don't feel like it. So please don't slap a label on anyone-we are all individuals. It sounds like a no-brainer, but it's much easier to use a label rather than dealing with each person on an individual basis-and a label keeps you from seeing the person as a person. Many people want that separation but it hurts us as a whole, I think.

There are individuals and there are individuals and then there's Hellboy. Hellboy, the demon spawn who may bring around the end of the world as we know it but is fighting for the good guys in the meantime. Bright red, with the remnants of his horns on his forehead and a right hand of doom that can pound though brick walls, no one would ever label him. The thing is, the last movie really showcased Hellboy as a character. He was funny, sarcastic, intelligent. He was like an old-time noir detective who was also red and fire-proof.
So where's that character? This movie has has advanced Hellboy and Liz Sherman's relationship but at the sacrifice of their characters. These two could now be interchangeable with any other reasonably intelligent couple on the big screen. That's not saying much as there are not many reasonably intelligent couples in the movies these days, but these two used to be special. They were funny and witty. Now Hellboy is singing a Barry Manilow song with Abe Sapien. this movie looks amazing. The monsters, elves and trolls are very cool and you can see where every cent of the budget went, but I feel like Del Toro (and I love him) decided that he would spend all of money on the cool monsters and not care so much about the characters. What happened to the people of Pan's Labyrinth? Each role in that movie was a real person, a sharply delineated part, whereas the parts could almost be interchangeable.
So I was disappointed. The actors made the most of what they had and all the performances were good (and thank God for Jeffrey Tambor and Seth Macfarlane, who voices Johan Krauss) but it would have been nice to have a little of the old swagger and humor in there. The Barry Manilow wasn't enough to make up for the lack of it.