Helloromances? Overly critical? perhaps....

Rating: 6/10 (10 July 2008)

Well here I am with another difficult film to review. I went to the preview 7/8/08 in Hartford CT. The crowd that was there was enthusiastic, even though it was not a packed house. I have been trying to classify this movie.... I started out assuming it was a comic book action adventure, I then cam to realize that Del Toro intended this to be a comedy. Wait, now I think its an attempt at at a love story slap stick comedy. OK I have to give up on labeling it!I'm not sure what the intentions were. But I know I left there with the impression that I had just seen a complicated conglomeration of several different movie genres. It wanted to be a comic book action thriller, but spent too much time and tried too hard at being schmaltzy and comedic.
Hellboy seemed to reach for every possible joke you could squeeze out of the, " ... Believe it or not - he's the good guy..." tag line. I think we understood that much out of the first movie. Being beaten over the head with it was a bit painful.. I had the same type of experience in the Disney movie "Enchanted", milking the jokes based upon the most unlikely juxtaposition possible for every possible guffaw! I thought Del Toro would have built on the solid action/comic style more in stead of building the love relationship as it were. The loss of Agent Myers was a detrement to the ensemble. Yes they set up the third movie with 2 main story lines that were laid down here, but the whole movie almost seemed like a primmer to the next installment. I am hoping the franchise gets back down to business in that one.
Sadly the plot spent very little time with the Golden Army itself... it seemed like they had very big plans then ran out of money and thought up a faster cheaper ending. There was a whole host of nit picky things in this movie that bothered me too. First, young Hellboy did not seem to be in character and the prosthetics he wore were clumsy and poorly done. To me it was not very believable. The love relationship of Hellboy and Liz was not quite right either. It was like only one day passed since the ending of the last movie... and here we find our plucky new lovebirds already having rough times. It was not a plausible plot to me. I kept finding myself almost verbalizing my disbelief in how they handled the interactions between the two. Abraham's infatuation with the princess was in fact a more believable plot line.
I also found much of the movie to be strangely ignorant of obvious answers. Remember when you know the killers in the closet of some B movie and you are trying to coach the star to help them avoid the obvious pitfall of opening the closet door where he will inevitably be attacked? Well there are quite a afew of these moment here. There were however some great one liners... but there just was not the same chemistry and pace that made the first installment a smashing success!
Go see it... but consider going to the bargain matinée!