Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Rating: 6/10 (21 November 2011)

From director Guillermo del Toro (Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth), the first film was worth watching, and I was surprised in a way at the time to see that there would be a sequel, and it was rated four stars, I had to see why. Basically an ancient pact was made between humans and creatures, and the demon superhero was told the story of this by his father figure Professor Trevor 'Broom' Bruttenholm (John Hurt), it involved three pieces of a powerful crown broken up. This pact has been broken by the appearance of evil elf Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) who is declaring war against humanity, and he plans to find the three crown pieces and unleash The Golden Army, a deadly group of fighting machines that are indestructible and will destroy the human race. The only one who can stop this from happening is the now older demon superhero Hellboy (Ron Perlman), along with his gang of other super powered chums, including flame creating Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), plus new Washington sent ectoplasmic medium Johann Krauss (Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane). Prince Nuada is so ruthless to take over the world that he even kills his own father to get his own way, but in the end of course Hellboy and the team save the day, and Liz gives Hellboy the news that he will be a father, to twins. Also starring Doug Jones as Chamberlain and Angel of Death, Jeffrey Tambor as Tom Manning and Anna Walton as Princess Nuala. Once again Perlman is likable as the both grouchy and soft sided antihero, Jones gets more time as his chum finding his own love interest that won't go anywhere, and the special effects and make up to create the large plant creatures and mechanical robot warriors among other things are fantastic, all in all it is a watchable horror fantasy adventure. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Makeup. Good!