Hellboy II: The Golden Army was written, directed and photographed by Guillermo del Toro, one of the most innovative and exciting directors working today. It’s full of action, bizarre creatures, and has two love stories. Yet, my reaction is that of Peggy Lee’s: Is that all there is?
I suppose if one were Rip Van Winkle and awoke after a long sleep and this was the first film they saw, they might well be dazzled. But it seems that every week, especially in the summer, we see another special effects extravaganza, and after a while they blur into one long spectacle. The films that stand out do because of a particularly impelling story or interesting characters, and Hellboy II is lacking in this area. I’m sorry to say that it’s ho-hum.
Hellboy, for those who didn’t see the first film, is a demon who was captured by the U.S. military as a baby and raised as human, and works for an ultra-secret organization that deals with paranormal occurrences. As embodied by Ron Perlman, he is a cigar-chomping rogue who loves cats, TV, and candy. His cohorts are his sweetheart, Liz (Selma Blair) who can set herself ablaze, and Abe (Doug Jones), a kind of gill-man (think of the Creature From the Black Lagoon) who is also an intellectual and classical music buff. New to the team this time is Johann Krauss, who is nothing but ectoplasm inhabiting what looks like an old flight suit.
In this adventure, they are dealing with creatures from folklore who are very real. In a prologue in which the eleven-year-old Hellboy is read a story by his father-figure (John Hurt) about a war between the elves, goblins and trolls vs. humans. The elven king had an indestructible golden army built that couldn’t be stopped, but he regretted the bloodshed and struck a live-and-let-live truce with the humans. His son, though, wanted to keep the war going, and has spent all these years in exile. When a piece of a crown that is necessary to get the golden army back up again comes up for auction, the baddie prince snatches it.
Given this premise, del Toro has a field day with mystical creatures. Mike Elizalde is billed as the creature design man, and he is to be lauded, even though I’m sure del Toro had a lot of say in the matter. Anyone who has seen Pan’s Labyrinth will recognize his distinctive imagination (he favors creatures who have eyes anywhere but on their faces). As wonderful as all this is, there is a distinct sense of been-there, done-that. Ever since the cantina scene in Star Wars 31 years ago, bizarre creatures in a communal setting has a high bar to reach. In Hellboy II it is the troll market, which is under the Brooklyn Bridge (how did del Toro resist calling it the Goblin Market, in a nod to the poem by Christina Rosetti?)
In between the battles featuring pint-size tooth fairies, massive ogres named Wink, and towering forest gods, the characterization focuses on Hellboy’s relationship with Liz (she’s got a devil-bun in the oven) and the well-worn theme of the superhero as “other,” feared and misunderstood by the people he is protecting. Perlman does very well with the character, who speaks like a character out of Mickey Spillane while looking like Mephistopholes. There is also more focus on Abe, who falls hard for the evil prince’s sister (Ann Walton). He and Hellboy share a humorous moment of getting drunk while listening to Barry Manilow.
That moment pretty much stands alone, though. There’s little wit in the script (the comedy involving Jeffrey Tambor’s put-upon boss is lame). Krauss is initially an interesting character, but not for long, and the climactic battle is resoundingly empty. I don’t know if del Toro is signed for any more of these, I hope not. Let Hellboy and Liz ride off into the sunset, and del Toro can concentrate on The Hobbit or whatever else springs from his fertile imagination.
What did you think of the first one? And how does it compare?
It’s not much better or worse than the first one, which I liked okay, but since these things don’t exist in a vacuum it suffers for not doing much new with the character, which was what Brian hoped for in his openings preview. Don’t get me wrong–it doesn’t suck, and taken on its own terms, it’s mildly entertaining.
Shocking how hard this fell.
On Spider-Man 3’s opening weekend, the biggest drop in the entire top ten was 59%. #2 and #3 dropped only 35% and 45%.
Hellboy not only dropped 70.9%, it also fell four spots on the top ten. Hancock is a week older, yet managed a 56.4% drop and to best Hellboy’s second frame.
Something clearly went wrong on the word of mouth side. Folks were deliberately avoiding this. Even spill-over traffic should have prevented a 70% drop.
Finally saw this today, and I didn’t really care for it at all. I think you’re right, JS, about a been-there, done-that feeling to the whole thing. It’s like del Toro was bored.
I think that the first film had the potential to spring a good franchise. I’ve made this comparison before, but to me it was on the same level as Singer’s first X-Men film. It wasn’t great, but it got the exposition out of the way and introduced some interesting characters. But where Singer built on his film, del Toro seems stuck in neutral. There’s way too much plot here for a movie without an interesting story.
I liked the prologue, with Hellboy imagining the story of the Golden Army as it’s read to him. But after that, the movie simply never gets going.
And, as is so often the case, a lot of the CGI was terrible. The early scene with Abe and the Tambor character wondering the halls of the BPRD, with the monsters and whatnot in the background, was especially bad, with the embarrassingly obvious rear-projection.
Very disappointing all around.