Now this is more like it

Rating: Null/10 (10 March 2014)

The original Hellboy movie didn't really connect with me. It still doesn't. I've always felt that they spent too much time with the romance and the various side characters and not enough with the actual main hero, Hellboy. And thus I believe this, the sequel, to be the superior Hellboy movie. Granted, there's still not enough Hellboy in it, but at least the character count has been trimmed down and even the romance feels more real, for some reason. I don't really know what changed with the latter, but it just feels more believable.
It's also a fascinating movie in that we get to see more of the world behind the veil as Hellboy - still played beautifully by Ron Perlman - and his team have to infiltrate the fey world and meet its various inhabitants in order to prevent global destruction by Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) and the eponymous Golden Army. And it's in this fey world that del Toro's vision truly shines. The troll market, for example, simply overflows with imaginative, unique and quite creepy creature designs, each more wondrous than the other. Then there's of course Johan Krauss, a German psychic inhabiting an empty diving suit, who joins Hellboy's team as its new leader. Great, wonderful design and excellent voice work from Seth MacFarlane.
Still, the movie is not without its flaws. Hellboy still feels like a side character in his own movie. The script doesn't allow him enough room for us to really delve into his psyche or being. Part of this is poor writing, but there still exists the problem of there being way too many characters. Also, the main villain of the film is a bit weak. Prince Nuada belongs to this race of emo goth vampire elves... close enough. And yes, he looks absolutely ridiculous and follows the proud cliché of being a whining "my daddy never loved me" archetype. To Luke Goss's credit though, he does manage to instill at least a little bit menace into the role, but it's still a pretty poor showing.
To sum it up, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a mixed package. The visuals, the imagination and the creativity of it all are absolutely phenomenal. The returning characters have all improved, Johann Krauss is a fine addition to the mix and as a whole it's a decent fantasy adventure film. If only the script had been a bit stronger and the villain more original, this might have been just as good as Pan's Labyrinth.