Stunning Brilliant & improvement on original.

Rating: 8/10 (11 June 2009)

Having loved the original Hellboy I was fervently looking forward to this sequel and while Hellboy II The Golden Army isn't a disappointment neither is it up to the standard of the first film. Having said that anything that lets director Guillermo Del Toro propagate his extraordinary imagination is well worth seeing for that reason alone and this film displays that to superlatively sumptuous effect.
Ron Perlman reprises the role of the wisecracking Hellboy who we see as a boy in the opening sequence being told the story of the golden Army by his human father ( John Hurt) who once fought against human kind( the golden army that is , not his father ) but have been mothballed by dividing the crown that controls them into three separate pieces kept in secret locations. Elf prince Nuada ( Luke Goss) may look a little on the pasty side but he is a great warrior and is determined to awaken the golden army so he can wage war on human kind. His twin sister Nuala (Ann Walton) is rather more moderate realising the chaos this would unleash .She also holds one of those missing pieces.
This is pretty standard fantasy fare and there is an argument that Del Toro and Hellboy creator Mike Mingola , the writers should have come up with something stronger in terms of the story , though the script does have a certain sardonic frisson and there is some tremendous character interplay.
Hellboy is still working for the secretive Bureau For Paranormal Research And Defence and still annoying his overbearing boss Manning (Jeffrey Tambor ) who laments his lack of discipline and the fact he keeps getting photographed and put on "You Tube" ."I hate You Tube" he tells Abe Sapian ( Doug Jones) the polite blue skinned amphibian . Hellboy,s partner the fiery (literally ) Liz (Selma Blair) is finding "Reds" lack of domesticity a problem and there is another potential dilemma lurking . Agent John Myers from the first film has been dispatched to Antarctica we are told ( this is because Rupert Evans who played him in Hellboy was unavoidable due to stage commitments)"He likes the cold" Hellboy sneers, and is replaced by ectoplasmic agent Johann Krauss ( voiced by "Family Guys " Seth McFarlane with an amusing mangled German accent which he based on Jeremy Irons character in Die Hard 3) whose officiousness rubs up Hellboy the wrong way.
The film makes points about selfless sacrifice , the power of love, the magnetic need for normality (Which it shares with Batman ) and hints broadly at a potential conflict of interest for Hellboy to resolve if there is another Hellboy film . The performances are great again and it,s nice that Liz is given a more developed role other than looking mopey. Really though it's the visuals and set pieces that astound with this film .Del Toro has an incredible eye and will make a scene fantastical even when something ordinary would do. The "Troll Market" scene is astonishing and the high-speed acrobatic denouement between Hellboy and Nuada in a cavernous city surrounded by enormous golden mechanical beings and massive rotating cogs is just breathtaking . There is no cheap CGI for Del Toro , everything looks authentic and he even invokes the demise of a giant "elemental" creature with a sense of magic and loss.
Del Toro clearly feels close to the Hellboy character .He turned down the chance to direct "Halo " , Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince" and "I An Legend" to bring this sequel to the screen . It wouldn't be the same without his marvellous vision yet if there is to be another Hellboy ( I very much hope there is) film he needs to work more on the story . Can you imagine a Hellboy film with the same allegorical and dramatic punch as his masterpiece Pans Labyrinth ? Till then this will do nicely though.