World, here he comes.

Rating: 6/10 (23 March 2019)

'Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)' is pretty much just more of the same. Despite being no better or worse in terms of quality, it does expand upon the world of the first in a fairly satisfying way, not by piling on excess lore but by spending a bit more of its time and its seemingly larger budget on a plethora of creature designs. It's not just Perlman and Jones who are caked, pretty much head to toe, in make-up this time; there are only two main players who aren't, to some degree, painted a pasty colour or plastered with impressive prosthetics. This goes a long way in making the supernatural side of things seem more tangible. Plus, most of the designs are satisfyingly creative and unmistakably 'Del Toro'. It does, however, make the movie seem a little bit 'Men In Black (1997)', with long shots featuring background agents wrangling oddly-shaped demons and a market scene with a variety of entities who all have their own little throwaway quirks. It sometimes feels a little bit like the film wants to focus on these difficult-to-create but often quite irrelevant moments more than tell a tight tale, which is understandable but ultimately detrimental. It's not a huge issue but you do start to notice the length of time spent on characters with little to do, really, other than look cool. In general, though, the structure and, even, pacing is improved upon from the first, mainly because the audience's surrogate character, Myers, is now missing. This means that the majority of the time can be spent on Hellboy himself, with the left-over space usually being dedicated either to the two other members of his team - both of whom thankfully get beefier roles - or to the villain - who is yet another improvement. The story itself plays a bit more with Hellboy's desire to be accepted by humanity, and whether or not their acceptance is even necessary. It's a nice idea even if it isn't capitalised on fully, with most of the movie playing out like more standard fantasy-action fare. The action scenes are spruced up a bit, making use of subtle - but noticeable - speed-ramping and generally tighter choreography for a faster feel. This style does sometimes seems at odds with our quite clumsy hero, especially since he's often competing with trained martial-artists at full speed, but the piece makes sure to pepper in the occasional moment of brute force to balance things out. Overall, the picture is an entertaining one. Of course, it isn't without its issues and, like its predecessor, it's only truly engaging to a certain degree. It feels more like a 2004 superhero film than a 2008 one but it still manages to balance its character and action rather well, crafting a visually-creative and predominantly practical world in the process. 6/10