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Let's face it: The first Hellboy movie was a bit of a disappointment. As fucking fantastic as it was to see director Guillermo del Toro play a big practical joke on the world by casting turd-faced Ron Perlman in the lead role (albeit hidden under pounds of red makeup and horns) in a big summer action flick, the film felt weighed down by studio notes and never really hit its mark. Thankfully, del Toro and his gang of freaks got another shot at getting things right.
This time, del Toro and company ditch the tentacled monster gods and immortal Nazis from the first film in favor of a more fantasy-driven spectacle. Indeed, Hellboy II: The Golden Army—based on a novel, inspired by the Hellboy comic series—is more Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings than H. P. Lovecraft. HB (Perlman), his pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), and fish-man confidant Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) fight giant tree gods and encounter an underground troll kingdom in New York City on their quest to stop an angry elf prince from unleashing an unstoppable robot army on the world. Phew.
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Ultimately, the film is just another mindless summer action spectacle, filled with wild set pieces and overblown special effects, but it's infectiously fun. The film's villain, the elf prince Nuada (Luke Goss), brings a surprising amount of weight to the movie, breaking the current trend in superhero flicks of two-dimensional, power-mad bad guys. What's more, everyone in the film seems to be having a hell (ha!) of a lot of fun, most evident midway through during a jazzy little musical number featuring a drunken Hellboy, Sapien, and a painfully awful Barry Manilow song.
While Hellboy II still hasn't quite found that perfect mix of horror and subtle comedy present in the comics, it's a vast improvement on the first film. We're clearly in store for another sequel, and if del Toro is again allowed to run wild, the series can only get better.
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Also by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee
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