I saw “Hellboy” but I can’t remember a thing about it, so when I first heard about “Hellboy 2” I wasn’t caring much about it … that is until I saw the preview.  The elf-dude looked very “anime” and I knew that was some action I wanted to see.  I was not disappointed. The elf-dude was indeed very “anime” and the ending was ending was very “anime”, too, along with the usual anime shtick of there not being a clear good or bad guy.  The monster design was great, continuing the same feel from the director’s other’s films (I forgot the director’s name and I’m feeling lazy right now — I’ll look it up tomorrow).  Some of the monsters felt directly pulled out of “Pan’s Labyrinth”.   The action was also very good with lots of martial arts and special effects.  The characters, too, were very pleasant.  I sympathized with the elf-dude’s frustration with humanity (I sorta wanted him to “win”), I liked Hellboy’s boyish charms, and the fish dude was very C3PO.  Oh, and then there was the ectoplasm guy with the voice of “Fritz” from the “Tiki Room” or the VW Bug from the new VW commercials.    Anyhow, that said, this movie is not for everyone.  My husband and I felt that this was more of a “world” movie than one for American audiences.    So if you like creative artsy monsters, comics, anime, and don’t need your movies to have a clearly stated good and bad guy, then you should see this movie.  As for the kids, although, there is violence, there is no blood.   However, some of the monsters are quite scary looking so you might want to take that into consideration when thinking about taking kids to this movie.