Nice visuals but very little excitement

Rating: 6/10 (12 July 2008)

"Hellboy 2" comes in the middle of a superhero sandwich, what with last weeks "Hancock" and next week's already proclaimed king of summer "The Dark Knight". I'm curious as to the legs this movie will have. The first one did OK, though I seem to recall a mixed reaction to it. The first one came out in April though, away from all the summer blockbusters. Since that first film, director Guillermo Del Torro has made somewhat of a name for himself with Pan's Labyrinth (tho I was one of the few who thought it was overrated) and he seems to be primed to become the next big thing in Hollywood. A mainstream hit would do wonders for him. I'm also interested in Ron Perlman, the man behind the Hellboy mask. He was the best thing about the first movie, sympathetic and cynically funny, and I feel this franchise should turn him into a star, or at least a better known name. All this was going through my mind this weekend as I entered the doors to see "Hellboy 2".
This second installment begins with an ancient tale of truce between humans and fantasy creatures. King Balor of the fantasy creatures created a golden army controlled by his crown but he was so ashamed at the result that he had the army hidden away, the crown destroyed into three pieces, and a peaceful resolution was settled. Jumping ahead to present day, his son, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), is appalled at what the humans have done to his father's land and he seeks the pieces of the crown to control the army and take the land back. This is a job for the team at the "Bureau for Paranormal Research", the amphibious Abe (Doug Jones), pyrokinetic Liz (Selma Blair), and big red, i.e Hellboy (Ron Perlman). Just they have problems of their own. No longer sure that Agent Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) can control the team, Washington has sent by-the-book Special Agent Johann Krauss (Seth McFarlane), who I'll describe to the best of my ability as white steam in a Scuba suit (he's also apart of the creature world if you haven't already guessed). With the help of Nuada's sister (Anna Walton), the team seeks to stop the Prince before he can get his hands on the army.
"Hellboy 2" is a minor entry in a big budget summer slot. It has its moments but it just doesn't have the overall gravitas of your usual big bang popcorn flick. There are a few things I liked, the biggest is that it's thankfully never boring. Like the first movie, this doesn't take itself too seriously. There are a few really funny tongue-in cheek moments, some of the best come from a scene in a troll market ("I'm not a baby, I'm a tumor" is a great line by the way) and visually Del Toro proves himself a talent as well, showing us evil looking trolls, demonic looking angels, and a whole slew of mechanical soldiers.
Just even with all this going for it, I can't think of one scene that excited or thrilled me, and I can think of a few, including a gigantic plant-like creature, that actually turned into gigantic let-downs. The villain is introduced as very quick and agile and he actually excited me at first but the movie gives him very little to do until the finale, and when that finally does come, it seems like he's being held back. And the other fights just seem like stuff you would find in any standard creature feature. A lot of clobbering but nothing especially cool. The plot on this one is a little by the numbers, sort of a CSI: Paranormal, and there are two romantic sub-plots involving Hellboy and Abe which, other than a funny scene where the two drink beer and sing Barry Manilow, don't really add much. But I'm an action guy and the lack of "wow" is no-doubt the films biggest flaw.
The actors don't seem to be having as much fun this time around either. Ron Perlman does the bad-ass thing and quips well, Seth McFarlane (yes from Family Guy) gives a very comical German accent for Krauss, and Jeffrey Tambor offers a few comedic bits but the rest of the cast is pretty wooden, Selma Blair being the biggest perpetrator as she holds a glum and bored look on her face through the entire movie. It's too bad that they didn't have David Hyde Pierce back for this one because Doug Jones' voice really threw me off. And while I enjoyed most of the movie's overall cheesiness, the opening scene featuring boy-hood Hellboy just made me cringe and hope that he would go away soon.
He thankfully does, but all for the purpose of presenting a mixed bag of impressive visuals, some funny moments, but overall no real excitement. In looking back at my review for the first movie, I noticed I said the same thing. "Hellboy 2" paves the way for a third installment and I'm sure I'd be interested in seeing it but by this point I'm wondering if I'll ever be truly impressed by these movies as a whole.