Character development (or lack of)

Just saw Hellboy 2 finally. Amazing, as expected. Really faithful to Mike Mignola and his comic masterpiece, but enough has been changed for it to work for the medium. It's one of the rare examples where the balance is truly perfect in a film adaptation of a comic (for shame, Watchmen), which is nice to see. I think people like James Cameron should really take a leaf out of Mignola's book in terms of character development. What seems to be the norm in movies these days is that they have a character for every aspect of the film, with each of their characteristics together contributing ultimately to the all-round feel in the final cut. In Hellboy, however, each of these characteristics exist within every character; there is no token army brute or sensitive generic weak female, every character is developed in such a way that we see all of these things in all of them. Hellboy, a demon discovered in a nazi operation has always had a sensitive side. Abe, the flimsy intelligent fish-lizard-thing has always been prepared to fight for what he loves-even Roger the Homonculus (need I explain) jerks a tear in the comics. This really puts films like Avatar and G.I Joe to shame, with their decadently one-dimensional 'characters' that convey little emotion, and leave the audience feeling even less, as this is substituted for big CGI set pieces, masses of hype and EXPLOSIONS (lookin' at you, Mr Bay). I'm not saying James Cameron is bad; Aliens was a brilliant film with the lovely Sigourney Weaver playing a very strong female character who gets tons of development and sustenance-my real beef is really with Titanic onwards.