Featured Review: HELLBOY 2

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Hellboy II: The Golden Army



Starring- Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Jeffrey Tambor, Seth MacFarlane, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, John Hurt.



Directed by Guillermo del Toro



Grade: C




"Now you've pissed me off!"

Guillermo del Toro is a visionary genius of the fantastical and imaginary. Anyone who has seen Pan's Labyrinth, whether they appreciate fantasy or war epics or not, can attest to the wonderful ideas and creatures del Toro comes up with in that brain of his. But with Hellboy II: The Golden Army, those mythical beings, while at times still resonate some amazing imagery, also begin to wear on your senses. At what point do the monsters and beings go from visionary delight, to being strange, random costumes for weirdness' sake?

I admit I have not seen the original Hellboy as of this writing. But I can surmise that at the time, before Pan, before many of the glut of fantasy novels turned big screen film treatments came out, Hellboy was fresh and unique. Iron Man, Hancock and Hulk claim to have the summer's darkest superhero, but that distinction clearly belongs to Hellboy and his close friends. But while the humanity of the movie is not to be ignored, the bizarre aspects are hard to look over either, and for me, not in a good way.

After a short opening with a young Hellboy being read to about the titular Golden Army by his caretaker (John Hurt), we meet him again in the present day during a crisis with his girlfriend, fellow U.S. government operative and superhuman outcast Liz (Selma Blair). She doesn't feel appreciated by him, et cetera, and Abe Sapien, a cetacean being with psychometry powers, discovers a personal secret of hers.

All of this must be worked out during an investigation concerning an auction house melee, to which the three find is part of a larger, ages old mystery concerning said Golden Army. It seems the elf son of the King who disposed of the army wants his revenge, and is out to seek the necessary parts to reignite it. Naturally if he succeeds, mankind is doomed.

Granted del Toro did not create the main characters, who are based from the Dark Horse comics in the 1990s. For better or worse, they are a good group; interesting, complex, and often mimic that of real people with feelings both sensible and irrational. Ron Perlman is enjoyable as the misunderstood and sometimes misguided, fun-loving Hellboy. He has a large personality, and Perlman portrays Hellboy nicely without letting the red makeup sell the character for him. Abe Sapien is a great realization as well. His loneliness yet impeccable pluckiness makes for a solid sidekick.

However, it's the secondary and background characters that get heady. For every eclectic but cool being such as the headless ectoplasmic Johann Krauss (voiced by Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane), there's mutants like The Angel Of Death and The Chamberlain (both played by Doug Jones, who wears the Abe Sapien suit), and the plant creature Hellboy fights with. These kinds of characters scream the work of del Toro; gangly, skinny, grotesque.

As good as it is to see the filmmaker hark back to older days of makeup rather than CGI, at what point do scenes seem wholly original, and not inspired by a glut of other fantasy films? When Hellboy and Abe scour the underground paranormal market, del Toro cuts to many vendors and patrons with capricious looks, showing off his makeup team's effort in bringing unearthly mutants to life. But doesn't the whole sequence feel as familiar as the cantina scene in the original Star Wars?

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is an ambitious undertaking, something viewers don't always see when it comes to sequels, especially ones released smack dab in the middle of the summer season. But for all that's worth, it just doesn't succeed cohesively enough to garner major kudos. Perhaps after feeling lukewarm to the other weekend fantasy films Journey to the Center of the Earth and Meet Dave, del Toro himself can give me an exercise into appreciating the works of the imaginary. I just pray if Hellboy 3 is made, there are no Shrek-like hellbabies running loose.