Hellboy Director's Cut

The trend to rush out bare bones DVD releases followed by opulent deluxe editions a few months later is an increasingly prevalent (and frustrating) trend in DVDs and their consumption. However, despite that fact that the Hellboy Director's Cut comes only a few months after Hellboy's initial release, much like Peter Jackson, who HB director Guillermo del Toro kind of resembles, it is done right. Following the impressively thorough two-disc original edition is a bit of a challenge though, and despite this new three-disc set (encased smartly in individual slip cases), and unlike Jackson's deluxe Ring editions, all is not new, with the second disc of extras being identical to the one offered in the original set. The big draw here for fanboys (and fangirls) though is the "director's cut," which sees about ten extra minutes of footage (most of which was featured in deleted scenes in the first offering) reinserted into the film and it does suss out some of the plot leaps and provide some increased character development (mainly for the pyrokinetic Liz) to the fantastic tale of a demon (Hellboy) raised by the forces of good to combat supernatural evils, specifically Rasputin and the apocalypse in the film adaptation of Mike Mignola's comic. There's also a new Del Toro commentary, this time without Mignola, and since he spent the original commentary talking in detail about the film with MM, save for when he hits a "new" scene, Del Toro here is content to wax philosophical on the comic influences in his life, the influences of and on Hellboy, the genius of artists like Jack Kirby, Mignola and Lovecraft (which Hellboy unquestionably owes a huge debt to), Ron Pearlman, the trouble marketing a film with the word "hell" in the title and countless other topics. Del Toro's love of his subject matter is undeniable and his frustration that he couldn't get the film made in '98 when he wanted to and beat out the Matrix phenomena and the comic book film adaptation explosion is palpable. No worries, Guillermo, Hellboy is still head and shoulders above the majority of what preceded it. Plus: animatics, production workshops, deleted scenes, more. (Columbia/TriStar)