Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
Right off the bat you can tell that director Guillermo Del Toro has done something right when John Hurt, a key component of the 1st movie, reappears in a flashback cameo to narrate the opening sequence and set up the story. Sadly, the opening scenes are a tad ridiculous, evoking memories of the drawn-out prologues of Lord Of The Rings and using bad-looking CGI animation to boot. Once the story begins, Ron Perlman in essence takes over the screen once again as Hellboy. Del Toro has (wisely) written out the annoying character of Agent Meyers from the original, thus giving Hellboy no handlers or minders, and in turn making him the BOSS of his outfit. That the character has a cool sense of humor stemming from his donât give a shit attitude makes him even more entertaining as well. As his flame-throwing love interest Liz, Selma Blair picks right back up with her chemistry with Perlman, and the filmâs heart go hand in hand with everything else. Doug Jones as Abe Sapien continues to do strong work, and a new member of the team who is little more than a ghost in a special containment suit is an interesting addition as well. The motivation of Hellboy to want to be a âcelebrityâ brings the proper amount of conflict and makes for many a humorous moment, particularly with the teamâs government contact played by Jeffrey Tambor. As for the villain, Del Toro has once again cast Luke Goss, who crashed and burned with his whiny Nomak in Del Toroâs Blade 2. Here, as Prince Nuada, his acting has certainly improved, and the writing and character development for his role is fantastic, but he still falls just short of having the proper presence that a more seasoned performer would have. Still, he does leagues better as a bad guy than the first filmâs pathetic Rasputin or the Power Ranger / Darth Vader hybrid Kronen. Anna Walton as his twin sister is beautiful in a freaky way, and the underground world these characters occupy is quite mesmerizing, in spite of the earlier mentioned LOTR comparison. In all, Del Toro has made a better Hellboy movie this time around, and Perlman cements his legend even more as one of the coolest actors in the world (plus the fact that he actually does Hellboyâs voice on the animated series shows his lack of ego and dedication to the character). In the end, if you donât mind quite a bit of CGI, one of the best action / adventure films to come out last yearâŚ
8/10