- Like its predecessor, Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army perfectly captures certain aspects of Mike Mignola's brilliant comic book series. Its humor is exactly right, Ron Perlman's adorable gruffness is indispensable, and the creature and set designs are as striking as anything in the comics. After recently reading through the entire Hellboy series, however, I can't help but notice those aspects of the movies introduced for what seem like utterly dubious reasons. Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) and Hellboy (Perlman) are in love because blockbuster films demand at least one such romantic relationship. The villainous elf Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) knows martial arts because this movie was made less than ten years after The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Most notably, the film contains essentially none of the pathos that pervades the Hellboy comics. After all, who wants to be sad while watching a summer popcorn flick?
- The story, never the most crucial aspect of any Hellboy tale, is that Prince Nuada intends to break a long-standing truce between elves and humans by assembling the pieces of an ancient royal crown and using it to activate the eponymous army of deadly mechanical automatons. Standing in the Prince's way are his reluctant sister Nuala (Anna Walton) and of course the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) that employs Hellboy, Liz, and the aquatic telepath Abe Sapien (Doug Jones). Although the BPRD is initially a secret government agency, Hellboy's violent defenestration while battling a pesky swarm of "tooth fairies" quickly transports them to the public sphere. As a result, the bureaucratic BPRD head Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) is forced to bring on agent Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) whose humorously Teutonic mannerisms may be overcompensating for the fact that he is an incorporeal ectoplasm in a futuristic diving suit. "He has very expressive hands," notes Manning.
- The best moments in Hellboy II: The Golden Army involve the creative visual effects for which del Toro has become famous. My favorite scene may be one in which a giant erupts out of the Irish countryside only to become the portal to a demon's lair, although the BPRD's visit to the long-hidden Troll Market and subsequent battle with an iron-fisted giant named Wink are nearly as memorable. Decidedly less impressive are the perfunctory "big battles" with the Golden Army and Nuada, the latter of whom is never really fleshed-out as a character. Incomplete characterization bothers me a lot less in a 12-page Hellboy short story than in an 85-million-dollar movie. At any rate, I suppose I should be grateful that Ron Perlman makes sure most of the scenes in this film are watchable. Sure, it's not as good as reading Mignola's comics, but then again what is?
- The goggles that members of the BPRD wear were invented by Eugen Schüfftan in a surprisingly subtle in-joke.
