Even better than the first one

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2010)

Talk about unlikely heroes. With skin the color of hell's red flames to match his horns and tail, Hellboy shouldn't be so damn compelling or likable as the center of attention. And with a daunting array of freaks, goblins, and strange creatures of the underworld, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army shouldn't work so damn well either, but it does, at least as well as the first Hellboy and possibly even better. It may not be a singular masterpiece; yet each electric, sumptuous shot by cinematographer Guillermo Navarro becomes its own masterpiece of makeup, special effects, and production design.
And Hellboy 2 pure pleasure; a giddy monster bash navigated through a dense maze of colorful characters, secret chambers, and underground kingdoms with a lot of the same popping, dynamic energy that Spielberg had at his best. This is a film that doesn't move, it bounces. del Toro wants to reconnect us with the childhood fear of the darkness, and he succeeds. But Hellboy 2 is also comfortingly familiar and nearly impossible to dislike. I felt like I had once again reconnected with old friends. There's Hellboy and his squeeze, Liz (a yummy Selma Blair), with Doug Jones reprising his role as Abe Sabien (while I miss the upper-crust intonation of David Hyde Pierce, Jones is good enough vocally it's hard to dwell on Pierce's absence for too long), along with a stressed and always very amusing Jeffrey Tambor as Tom Manning, the head of the (secret) Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.
The opening sequence brings back another character from the first Hellboy, the great John Hurt as Professor Trevor Buttenholm, a Roman Catholic expert in the paranormal who first found the creature in a Scottish cave as the second World War came to a close. It is Christmas in 1955 and in a military base he reads to his adopted son the story of the the Golden Army, a fierce battle that took place long ago between human beings and the elves (stylistically the depiction of the battle reminded me a bit of the clay animation The Adventures with Mark Twain from the 1980s, and as with everything in the picture, it's a stunner). Young Hellboy is delighted with his father's storytelling but ironically refuses to believe that events described actually happened. Of course he's proved wrong. The humans and the elves once did go to war, and back in the present day Prince Nuada (English actor Luke Goss) of the Underworld is ready to wage war again with the human race, but can't until he acquires all the pieces of the crown that are necessary for spurring the army into battle.
In the midst of a picture with waves of green ooze, talking tumors, and hordes of tooth fairies, the beautiful, heart touching moments are perhaps the biggest thrill of all. I found the first Hellboy to be affecting but the emotional depth of the story is expanded here. The emotions are seamlessly woven into the film and are as potent as its kicky action. The most haunting occurs after Hellboy has demolished a huge, destructive green monster (after a well-written segment where he questions whether he should hurt a fellow freak in the first place) and he splashes to the ground, being reduced to nearly nothing. As life emerges from death (plants instantly spring out of the slain creature), del Toro slows the pace of the picture down and lets us bathe in the strange, ineffable beauty of the moment. I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like it. There's also a melancholy segment where Hellboy showers alone-bruised both physically and on the inside-and del Toro brilliantly plays "Beautiful Freak," the title track from the Eels' first album. It's the smartest use of an Eels song that I've seen yet in a movie, and it makes for a tenderly empathetic moment That's not even the movie's most memorable musical scene: Hellboy singing along (plastered) to a Barry Manilow tune is certain to have that distinction. It's bizarre to be sure, but it works because Guillermo del Toro has such a firm command of the tone and mood throughout. When the Prince's twin sister Nuala (played by Anna Walton) escapes to the secret location of the BPRD as her brother tries to find her and the crown he needs to wage war, the moments between her and Abe Sapien are handled so deftly that it's almost as though we can feel their mutual attraction before they do.
Performances are mostly solid as well. Ron Perlman is Hellboy again and his performance is superior to the one he gave in the first Hellboy. His acting is less bombastic (slightly), and both his acting and the dialogue he's given have less of the world-weary sarcasm. What's remarkable is how easy Perlman makes it for people to like Hellboy. There are two strands running through his character, the ass-kicking warrior and the somewhat boyish outcast, and he balances both aspects. Selma Blair occasionally feels like she's overreaching in a way that she didn't in the first film, which was a touching display of aching sadness and longing and the best performance in that film. Mostly she's giving the right performance for the picture. The most surprising performance, for me, was Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane who does a very good as Johann Krauss, the deceased German (with a thick accent) who exists as a gaseous spirit in a containment suit and is sent in to command the others. As an ardent detractor of his show, I've always felt that he was a very limited vocal artist (which is only one of Family Guy's numerous flaws), but here he proves me wrong on that count.
"Hellboy" is one of the most entertaining films that I've ever saw. Igive it 10 stars.