Hellboy II: The Golden Army is Guillermo Del Toro's anticipated sequel to the first installment of Hellboy, and his first flick after the brilliant Pan's Labyrinth. The plot of Hellboy II centers around an ancient but extraordinarily powerful golden mechanical army created for the king of all magical creatures (King Balor). He had the army created to gain an edge in the war with humans, an edge that turned out to be so successful the king was overcome with remorse and decided to deactivate the army forever. He split his royal crown (the controlling agent of the army) into 3 pieces keeping one for himself, giving one to his daughter (Princess Nuala) and one to the humans in an effort to keep the army from ever being reactivated again and an agreement was reached - the magical creatures would remain in and control the forests of the world while the humans would reside in the cities. Princess Nuala's twin brother, Prince Nuada, was decidedly unhappy about this arrangement, feeling the humans would not honor the agreement. Several hundred (perhaps thousand) years pass, the humans begin to infringe on the forests and Nuada decides now is the time to unite the three pieces of the crown and take control of his father's long dormant golden army of machines warriors.
I'm not a fan of Hellboy II's plot, honestly. Well, not a fan of the plot in this particular context. Hellboy is a comic book character and to me, this story feels like it would be more at home in a high fantasy, fairy tale setting rather than a comic book setting. I honestly would have liked to see what Del Toro and Co. could have come up with had they not been bound to the Hellboy character and made up an entirely original cast of heroes. But as it is, it is certainly not bad and there will undoubtedly be many who enjoy the movie for what it is. The progression of the plot, however is very basic and once the back story has been explained, there are very few surprises along the way. One can almost predict what Hellboy will say/do next.
The movie relies much more heavily on effects than its predecessor, which has positives and negatives. Del Toro and his team have placed no restrictions on their creative minds for this film, ending up with an overload of fantasy creatures and wild scenarios. Especially in the first half of the movie, it seemed there was some new, twisted and totally bizarre creature showing up and disappearing every few minutes. It was in direct contrast to Pan's Labyrinth, where I was desperate to catch a glimpse of the magical world only briefly hinted at and I wanted to soak in every precious moment Del Toro gave to us with the faun and/or the other magical creatures. In Hellboy II, however, it almost feels like Del Toro wanted to saturate every possible frame with as many fantasy effects, grotesque beasts, towering giants and any other kind of extravagant FX his team could come up with. As a result, Hellboy II was way too busy with special effects. They are quite brilliant, but the film is overstuffed with them. Towards the end of the film, we find our characters in the middle of a peaceful Northern Ireland meadow, where (briefly) there are no effects at all....just them walking in the field. It was wonderful, just because it felt like a breath of fresh air after all the slime, flying critters, dirty crowded streets, mechanical underground chambers, etc. Which brings me to my next point: I'm just not a fan of the character/enemy designs in the movie. Most of the characters/creatures/monsters are all hulking, ugly, disgusting looking creatures with broken horns, scars, pulsing wounds, eyes in places they shouldn't be and at least one mechanical appendage. There's really nothing at all about the film that is beautiful, which I felt was to its detraction.
I've heard several comparisons made about Hellboy II's Troll Market to Mos Eisley from Star Wars: A New Hope. I'm not sure I would say Mos Eisley as much as I would say it reminded me of Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter flicks. As a matter of fact, the whole movie carried a Harry Potter feel with it (one wonders how fantastic an HP movie would be with Del Toro at the helm) - from the fantasy setting, to the world of magic most humans are oblivious to, to the secret underground shopping districts, to the feeling of rejection for being "freaks" our main characters experience...there are several parallels between the two series'. Another thing: I'm sick of the whole hero-rejected-by-the-people-he's-out-to-save-because-they-think-he's-a-dangerous-freak thing that so many comic book movies do. I wasn't a fan of it when the idea was original, and now it's annoying, lazy and lame. Directors of the world: find a new way to make the second installment of super hero movies interesting. Please.
Overall, I walked away from Hellboy II with a general feeling of disappointment. It wasn't bad. Far from it, in fact. I probably went into the movie with inflated expectations, but I still couldn't help feeling it could have been better. It didn't do anything wrong, but it I felt the mashing of comic book hero and high fantasy just didn't work very well. Bring on the Hobbit, Mr. Del Toro.
6/10
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
Produced by Lawrence Gord, Lloyd Levin, Mike Richardson, Joe Roth
Written by Guillermo Del Toro and Mike Mignola
Starring Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, Selma Blair
Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and some language
