Hellboy

We went to see Hellboy 2 this afternoon. If anything, I liked it even better than the first one, not the least for the exploration of the fantasy beings. They used some of the same visual artistry as "Pan's Labyrinth," which made for a colorful and interesting depiction of the fae. They mangled the Celtic mythology quite a bit, but they made a visually stunning and exciting movie.

I will admit, I was disappointed in some of the outcome, but I liked that they at least began to explore some of the grey areas with regards to humans and their impact on the world. I can't really say a lot here without giving away major spoilers, but I can at least mention things that are in the movie blurbs and such. The idea behind this movie was: The fantastic (fae, otherworldly, elven, goblin, whatever) beings gave up control of this world long ago; what if they wanted it back? What, indeed?

There were things I liked very much about this movie, and things that made me shake my head. But as my crit partners are always telling me: this was someone else's story, not mine, and there's no rule that says people who play with the Celtic or other culture's mythos actually have to stick closely to it when they're using it as a jumping-off point for a story.

That said, however, I couldn't resist the compulsion to tell my kids some of the story of the relationships between the Sidhe and humans, as per Irish mythology. These are the hazards of being the children of a writer who likes to research the actual source material her stories are based on.