Disappointing, derivative, muddled and frequently laughable

Rating: 3/10 (21 February 2009)

Are movies based upon graphic novels rotting the brains not only of viewers, but of otherwise respected critics? I have no other explanation for Roger Ebert -- the critic for whom I have the highest respect -- giving "Hellboy II" 3-1/2 out of 4 stars. I mean, Ebert is a very smart man; one of the few critics capable of appreciating "Synecdoche, New York", for crap's sake! How could he be taken in by this cobbled-together tower o' turds? The real problem with so many filmic treatments of graphic novels is that it's an immature subgenre; it doesn't know how seriously to take itself, so it simply throws together seriousness, winking irony and schlock in approximately equal amounts. The original "Hellboy" movie succeeded because it never took itself too seriously, and because Ron Perlman's characterization of the title character was likable despite itself. No such luck with "Hellboy II", whose star basically phones in his performance with (with one exception) little more than an embarrassingly unlikable and dull routine. (That one exception is not in his favor; it's his mawkish and utterly false sentimentality towards "Liz Sherman", his perfunctory love interest. They might as well have subtitled "Hellboy II" with "Will Fatherhood Change Hellboy?")
But the real flaws of "Hellboy II" are in its utter banality. We're given a "McGuffin" (Alfred Hitchcock's term for the overarching quandary or goal around which the plot arranges itself) of something to do with an army of 490 robots who can be controlled by someone in possession of a certain crown. OK, fair enough, but the importance of this is related in about 2 minutes of voice-over exposition that lends no gravity whatsoever to the matter. So there's an army of golden robots somewhere? Why should we care? This is a bog-standard "Oh dear, there's an army of robots that can be used for doing Very Bad Things" plot device used in stories since the 1920s. Ho-flipping-hum.
And in charge of those robots is one "Prince Nuada" (a name straight from Fantasy Films Central Casting) -- a parricide and regicide who nonetheless takes the time to lecture Hellboy about the earth's poor, fragile environment (cliché #2) and "you're a freak too, why are you helping humans who don't like you?" (cliché #3) It doesn't help that "Prince Nuada", for all of his ass-kicking, uses freakin' EXPANDING SWORDS and SPEARS to do his dirty work (apparently, his supernatural, technologically advanced circumstances are afflicted with the very thing that afflicts so many fantasy films and anime: namely that in the future, swords are the lethal weapon of choice, instead of oh, I don't know -- maybe GUNS?) Worse yet, "Prince Nuada" looks and acts EXACTLY like a low-budget "Interview with the Vampire"-era Tom Cruise. Every scene he's in has to be approached with maximum scenery-chewing, glaring, flouncing and Important Speechifying.
We are given a "romance" between Hellboy and "Liz Sherman" that could not be less emotionally true, unless your benchmark of relationship verity is "Friends". We are given the utterly cretinous Jeffrey Tambor as comic relief, fresh from such fine TV shows as "Three's Company" and "The Ropers", who manages to suck the tension and credibility out of every scene he's in. Danny Elfman's treacly musical score swells and his strings sob at moments that are supposed to tug our heartstrings, but end up just being laughable. News to the world's superheroes, wanted and unwanted: we don't give a fig about your romantic relationships, your hypothetical fetuses or the lame-ass Barry Manilow song of the '70s that sums up all of your complex feelings towards both. And word to the producers of "Hellboy II": the brewers of Tecate called to let you know that they have your $2 million product placement dollars ready to exchange for your souls. Mmmm, Tecate -- delightfully refreshing!
In the process, "Abe Sapien" inexplicably (for love, or course!) endangers the lives of everyone on earth because he's infatuated with chickie. Ron Perlman moves his face like he's a plastic surgery disaster. There's a "fascistic German robot" (oh, Benicio -- you card!). There's a "troll market" that owes so much to the "cantina" scene in the original "Star Wars" that...well, it's just pathetically derivative. There is endless, ENDLESS CGI. (They should've given "CGI" top billing in the credits, ahead of Ron Perlman.) There's a Really Big Nature God freak ripped off directly from Miyazake's "Mononoke-hime". There's a THIRD version of The Freak With Eyes Where Eyes Ought Not Be in a Benicio del Toro film. (In del Toro's next film there will be a freak with his eyes in his elbows. In the film after that, they'll be on his scrotum. Just FYI.)
More laughable than any of these is the fact that every single time our heroes are faced with an emergency, they stand around and wait for the worst possible thing to happen BEFORE they actually do anything. A monster is on the loose? Hellboy has his gun locked and loaded, but where's the sense in actually _doing_ anything with it? Instead of simply shooting the monster that is looming over him, Hellboy has to break into a minivan, take out a baby that is in no present danger, climb the side of a building while holding said baby as said monster demolishes the neighborhood, and THEN, at the last minute, shoot the monster. Congratulations, Hellboy! You saved the baby! In the meantime, 73 people were crushed. Brilliant. Frankly, any plot that relies upon heroes waiting until the last minute to do the most obvious, sensible thing, is already running on empty. And running on empty is what "Hellboy II" is, from the get-go.