Supposedly only 75 minutes long, but it feels nearly twice that, Sword of Storms is exactly what you don't want the Hellboy movie to be. It manages the trifecta of bad animated movies, to wit:
1.) Bad Voice-Acting - Someone apparently told Selma Blair to growl all her lines (deadpan), and while Perlman and Doug Jones were great, they weren't enough to make up for the rest of the straight-to-video players. I really don't need to hear Phil Lamarr do his stock suburban white kid voice ever again.
2.) Clunky, Boring Animation - I can accept that the native Hellboy style probably wouldn't work in an animated movie, but why would you go with this? It's as if a low-budget anime and Ultimate Avengers had a particularly ugly child. I wouldn't be surprised if Sword of Storms shares an animation studio with Ultimate Avengers, it's crap.
3.) More minutes than story - There's a gigantic lull in this movie, worse than any Bond Film, nestled neatly between the beginning and end. This part is especially disappointing because Mignola actually wrote this incarnation of Hellboy. Combind with the clunky, slow, thrill-less animation style the movie utterly fails to redeem itself with the climax. I was too deep in my coma/stupor to enjoy Hellboy punching things, and that's saying something.
This is the kind of movie you can only enjoy as light background music, the instant you take an interest in the story it will disappoint.
