Hellboy 2: The Golden Army 24 August 2008

Following the success of the 2004 film Hellboy, Guillermo del Toro returns with the thoroughly awesome, entertaining and visually inventive, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

Prince Nuada, the Elf Prince of the Underworld, is determined to end the truce between humans and denizens of the underworld headed by an army of indestructible golden warriors. Hellboy, his flame wielding girlfriend Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien the aquatic sidekick are joined by mostly dead German spirit Johann Kraus, and Princess Nuala Nuada’s twin sister. Between them, they have to save the world from total destruction… Such is the way of things.

I really liked Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Guillermo del Toro’s previous film Pan’s Labyrinth, was a work of genius a dark fantasy set during the Spanish Civil War. Hellboy by contrast is a funny and engaging action packed romp. The stick insects from Pan’s Labyrinth return, only with a comic twist as man-eating ravenous, “tooth fairies” which are all at once deadly, strangely cute, and given to amateur dramatics during death scenes.

Unlike Spiderman which is an empty and vapid affair, the Hellboy films really are more about the characters than big action set pieces. Even though it refuses to take itself too seriously the film is about relationships, the romance between Hellboy and Liz not CGI monsters beating the hell out of one another. What I

particularly liked about Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, was the physicality of it, unlike other adaptations of comic books, there is almost no resorting to loads of CGI characters, and there is something about physical actors on-screen even in a huge latex costumes. In the title role Ron Perlman is painted bright red with sawed-off horns, tail and a stone fist, yet under all the make-up he is a cigar-chomping anti-hero more like a Bogart noir character than a Nazi summoned demon. The every scene is packed with details and invention, and the film is filled with an assortment of weird creatures particularly during a visit to a huge underground Trolls’ Market, inexplicably located beneath Brooklyn Bridge.

The only real disappointment was Luke Goss, as the villain Prince Nuada, who was about as scary as a chocolate HobNob. Seth MacFarlane as the voice of Johann Kraus was a great bit of casting. The film was very funny, there were some great lines which rivalled the number of laughs I’ve seen in some ‘comedy’ films recently. No Hellboy 2: The Golden Army isn’t Pan’s Labyrinth… But it was never meant to be. It is as much a del Toro movie as his more serious Spanish work, but it is witty, and funny and creative and you really will have to work hard to find better. I really hope that after he is done directing The Hobbit film(s), Guillermo del Toro will return to the Hellboy world just one more time for a completion of the trilogy.