A Disney Movie on Steroids

Rating: 6/10 (16 July 2008)

The first HELLBOY is one of my favorite Superhero movies of all time, and to me one of the most underrated of them all. Its mix of cool, urbane wit, loving references to Lovecraftian demonology, and the framework of a medieval morality play gave it true resonance and depth. It had its heart firmly secured in being the story about a son of Satan himself as an everyman who is trying to do the right thing despite temptations to do otherwise.
The second film seems however, to take its cue from classic Disney. For better and for worse. Like Disney's animated features, it is capable of great beauties, wonders and terrors, but like those features, its stance is much more conservative and guarded than one that Del Toro would normally push.If you recall the great Disney moments, like "Night on Bald Mountain", the dragon in "Sleeping Beauty" and the transformation and stained glass window sequences in "Beauty and the Beast", Hellboy 2 is like all those moments collected and on steroids, but it also has inherited the tame eco-mysticism of "Pocahontas" and the autopilot storytelling of most Disney concoctions. And for that it is missing the sinister beauty and poignancy without sentimentality of the first.
Go see it if you want to, and I recommend you go see it, just be reminded that it's not quite more of the same as the first for those who loved the first...especially if you liked it for the same reasons I did.