Hellacious, High Spirited Hokum!

Rating: 9/10 (23 July 2008)

Writer & director Guillermo del Toro's fertile imagination knows no limits. The award-winning Mexican helmed the Marvel Comics' vampire sequel "Blade 2," the groundbreaking Dark Horse comics' original "Hellboy," and the Oscar-winning whimsy "Pan's Labyrinth." Indisputably, "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" surpasses its entertaining 2004 predecessor as a slickly-made serio-comic science fiction epic that pits its fireproof, scarlet-skinned protagonist against adversaries more audacious and outlandish than in the original. At the same time, our cigar-smoking, cat-cuddling hero matures in some surprising ways. The gallery of ghouls and goblins with whom Hellboy contends is both diverse and diabolical. A towering beanstalk menaces Hellboy; an Angel of Death with eyes in her vulture wings instead of her face shows him mercy, and cadaverously pale cannibalistic Tooth Fairies swarm after him like schools of ravenous piranha. Synthesize elements of "X-Files" with "Men in Black," and you'll have an accurate idea what "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" has to offer. The most intriguing creature appears in the third act. What appear to be huge boulders strewn about in a field turn out to be the body of a stony Goliath slumbering.
"Beauty and the Beast" TV star Ron Perlman is both hilarious and hardheaded as the kitschy Dark Horse comic book superhero "Hellboy." Literally, Hellboy is half-humanoid and half-demon, but brick-red all over. While it makes matters simpler if you've seen the first "Hellboy," you don't need to have seen the original to appreciate this silly but super-charged sequel. Basically, Nazi occultists with help from infamous Russian madman Grigori Rasputin spawned Hellboy during a secret experiment in World War II in the original. The U.S. Army stormed the Nazi stronghold and liberated a small red devil that Rasputin had conjured up from an unearthly portal and summoned to Earth. Professor Trevor Broom (John Hurt of "Heaven's Gate") adopted the cuddly demon and raised him like his own son. Since then Hellboy has grown up, but this alien life-form doesn't age like humans. Partially, he resembles the Incredible Hulk with his enormous physique; puffs on stogies like "X-Men's" Wolverine, lugs around a gargantuan revolver that Dirty Harry would envy and wears his devil horns filed down to look like a World War I pilot's goggles so he will blend in with the scenery. No matter what our sympathetically our hero behaves, Hellboy rarely blends in with humanity.
The U.S. Government has recruited the trench-coat clad Hellboy with two other mutants: his blue, amphibious, psychic sidekick Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and his scorching babe of a girlfriend, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair of "The Sweetest Thing") who can transform herself into an inferno, for its ultra-secret agency, the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. According to the exposition, FDR chartered the B.P.R.D. to deal with extraterrestrial threats. No, "Hellboy" doesn't take itself any more seriously than its wonderful predecessor did and the charm of this sequel lies in its self-effacing humor. "Hellboy 2" briefly recaps Big Red's origins. Happily, although he died in "Hellboy," Professor Broom reappears here in a cameo. Broom delights the 11-year old Hellboy with a bedtime tale about an ancient war between humans and elves. Ultimately, humanity won control of the cities, while the trolls assumed control of the forests. However, humanity has broken its promise and encroached on the forests with its malls and parking lots. The incensed son of Elf King Balor, pugnacious Prince Nuada (Luke Goss of "Blade 2"), has decided to abandon the truce between mankind and the elves. Initially, Nuada's father Balor (Roy Dotrice of "Nicholas and Alexandra") had assembled a golden army of mechanical warriors that "never knew hunger and could not be stopped," but Balor kept this invincible army in check, much to his son's chagrin.
A peerless martial arts expert, Nuada plans to massacre humanity with his father's long dormant golden horde. Before he can mobilize the army, Nuada murders his helpless father in cold blood without a qualm while his incredulous twin sister Nuala (Anna Walton) watches in horror. Nuada's Achilles heel is that anything that happens to his twin sister can exact a similar toll on him. Nuada embarks on a scavenger hunt to locate three parts of a magic crown that will enable him to command these mechanical combatants. Meanwhile, FBI liaison to the B.P.R.D., Agent Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor of "City Slickers'), enlists "ectoplasmic" but anonymous Professor Johann Krause (James Donn) to supervise Hellboy and company. Krause is as bizarre a character as they come. Dressed in a deep sea diver's outfit, he never shows his face, and speaks with a clipped, cartoon-like German accent. When Hellboy isn't clashing with either Nuada or his fantastic monsters, our hero wrestles with an even harder rival, his temperament girlfriend Liz who harbors a secret that will forever alter Hellboy's life.
Not surprisingly, the imposing Perlman dominates this lighthearted but larger-than-life fantasy, and the scene with Hellboy as a child gives more depth than usual to such a character. Furthermore, Hellboy has to run a gauntlet of some of the most visually impressive monsters of the summer. Indeed, Hellboy gets his butt kicked before he kicks butt. As the malignant Nuada, Luke Goss drips evil; Goss resembles the old rock star Edgar Winter. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Tambor provides welcome comic relief as the bureaucratic Manning. Altogether, "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" qualifies a real supernatural sizzler with a sense of humor!