Looks great but is a bit shallow.

Rating: 6/10 (8 July 2012)

Hellboy II: The Golden Army starts at an auction in New York where the evil Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) steals a piece of the Crown of Bethmora which was to be sold, the son of Balor (Roy Dotrice), the king of the Elves, the Prince wants to break a centuries old truce between the Elves & mankind & reawaken the fearsome Golden Army of giant mechanical robotic soldiers. Prince Nuada needs two more pieces of the Crown, one of which his father Balor has & the other is with his sister Princess Nuala (Anna Walton). After killing his father & reclaiming the second piece of the Crown his sister Nuala flees into the Troll market to try & protect herself & the third piece of the Crown. Meanwhile Hellboy (Ron Pearlman) the Bereau for Paranormal Research & Defense investigate the auction theft & the killing of everyone there, they follow the leads to the Troll market & Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) finds Princess Nuala who then joins forces with the Bereau to prevent Nuada getting hold of the third piece of the Crown...
This American & German co-production was written & directed by Guillermo del Toro & is the follow-up to his original Hellboy (2004) which I thought was a very good comic book action adventure film & while I felt Hellboy II: The Golden Army isn't quite as good it's still a fine film full of fantasy & action. Based on character's in the Mike Mignola comic book Hellboy II: The Golden Army follows a similar path to many superhero comic book films with an eccentric hero, a few sidekicks, a super villain of some sort with an absurd plan to destroy/rule the world & lots of action set-pieces in which bad guy's try to kill good guy's. The most disappointing aspect of Hellboy II: The Golden Army is how linear the story is, just how predictable & routine it feels as everything feels old & without any significant twist's Hellboy II: The Golden Army is nothing more than a straight forward build-up to the final showdown between the hero & villain. Sure there's a bit of friction between Hellboy & Liz, Abe falls in love & a new member joins the team but director del Toro was obviously far more interested in the visuals & fantasy elements than the story & character's here, that's not to say Hellboy II: The Golden Army is terrible as even at two hours long it moves along at a fast pace, it never becomes boring, there's plenty of imaginative touches to keep you watching, there's the odd bit of humour that works & some that don't while it all adds up to a good time as long as you don't look past the flashy visuals for too long.
As already mentioned the one area where Hellboy II: The Golden Army excels is in it's visual effects & creature design, from the guy with a wooden head carved like a cathedral to the giant clockwork army to the stone giant that rises from the ground to the guy who pushes himself along on carts since he has no legs, then there's Angel of Death with huge wings covered in blinking eye's, the Kitten eating Troll, the nasty Tooth Fairies & a huge plant like monster that rampages through New York. The CGI computer effects are excellent, the live action puppet effects are as well & it's clear a lot of time, effort & money went into the visual aspect of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The look of the film is also superb with a fantastic opening flashback using wooden style animated puppets & an impressive climax set in a huge room full of moving cogs & wheels.
With a supposed budget of about $72,000,000 this had triple the budget of the original Hellboy & it show's with much more elaborate action set-pieces & bigger effects. In mixing the superhero & fairy tale fantasy aspects Hellboy II: The Golden Army really does look terrific with a nice mix between practical & CGI computer effects work. Rupert Evans was unavailable for this sequel so was written out while the main villain Luke Goss was also the main villain in del Toror's Blade II (2002) in which he also plays the disgruntled son of a King out for revenge on mankind.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a visual feast of fantasy, strange creatures & lush settings but as a film it's a bit empty, I definitely liked Hellboy II: The Golden Army & enjoyed it a lot but I would maybe stop just short of saying I loved it. Certainly better than many films out there & well worth watching.