Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (17 July 2008)

So... Hellboy. I enjoyed the first film, true, not enough to bother buying it on DVD but I thought it was refreshing and fairly original for a comic adapted film so I thought I'd see the second. Overall I was disappointed with the second installment. Here is why.
Guillermo del Toro has a wonderful imagination. Many of his films have absolutely gorgeous imagery and beautifully designed characters. Unfortunately, Hellboy II suffers because of style over substance. The locations and visuals are lovely but the characters, script and acting seems 2-dimentional. There is no substance, there is no charm. The actual plot spent very little time on the 'Golden Army' itself... it instead concentrated on the new characters of Prince Nuada and Princess Nuala who are very generic characters and have little personality. Selma Blair as Liz seemed very flat and unemotional, Jeffrey Tambor was just annoying and despite his best efforts Doug Jones's voicework as Abe just couldn't reach the same emotional levels as David Hyde Pierce's work in the first film. The script was painfully predictable and completely unengaging. Although I did find the scene when Hellboy and Abe got drunk mildly amusing it seemed very cheap... The rest of the script was riddled with jokes that sadly weren't funny at all. I can understand that yes, many of the characters in the film were introduced in the first film but the fact that no time is spent on defining them, their personalities or motives means they all appear flat and uninteresting. The character Johann Krauss was infuriating. A German accented ectoplasmic robot voiced by Seth MacFarlane... Christ. I was actually glad when he was punched in the face and for one brief, wonderful moment it seemed that he was dead. Plus, his briefly mentioned backstory was a waste of time. Nobody cares because he is so tedious to watch. As for the plot, it is very repetitive. Silly wisecracks followed by a huge yet unoriginal fight scene followed by a romance scene which doesn't emotionally effect you at all, repeat, repeat, repeat. The romantic pairings of Liz/Hellboy and Abe/Nuala were poorly done. Liz and Hellboy are completely dysfunctional and you just can't help but not care about what becomes of their relationship in comparison to the first film. Abe and Nuala's connection was a nice idea but the writers seem to think that the fact that they are both psychic means that they don't have to develop it properly. Nothing clicks. The dubbing on the creatures was terrible, particularly in the market sequence and the opening scene with young Hellboy who looked disturbingly like a character from The Grinch. Not even John Hurt's brief performance could distract me from that atrocity. The films editing seemed lacking too. The wipes used on scene transitions drew far too much attention from what was going on the the fades in the final sequence as Nuada and Nuala die was cringe-worthy. There were so many inconsistencies that the entire film seemed strained and disjointed. One of the few positive things in the film that deserve mention is Doug Jones as the Angel Of Death who was mesmerising and eerily enchanting but the character was given so little screen time that it is forgotten by the end of the film.
If you enjoyed the original Hellboy I suppose it is worth watching but otherwise don't waste your money. Disappointing. 5/10.