2008 / 110 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Guillermo Del Toro is a likable enough guy. But, as a director, he seems to return to the same well over and over again. Allow me to elaborate.

Take “Hellboy 2″, for example. Hellboy is a great character: a demon raised by the Nazis to destroy the world that was instead taken in by a kindly government agent and raised to fight for Good. He’s a hellish red beast with a tail and horns who also has a soft spot for kittens, pancakes and a good cigar. In this film, Hellboy goes to battle against a “son of the Earth” (which I think is just a fancy way of saying “elf”) determined to make humanity pay for their rape of the planet and, particularly, the way all magical beings have been forced into hiding and made nearly extinct. This son of the Earth is hoping to accomplish this by raising the titular “golden army” which are indestructible and, admittedly, cool-looking.

So far, so good. Right? I would say so. This is a great plot. Unfortunately, once it’s been set in motion, Del Toro pretty much just rehashes most of the plot points from the original “Hellboy” and uses them as the beats for the sequel. Once again the bad guy breaks into Hellboy’s headquarters to get vital information. Once again the heroes have to venture underground to halt the apocalypse. Once again the film spends a lot of time interested in the love lives of freaks. None of this is necessarily bad. The film is still entertaining and it’s not a complete rehash like the awful, awful “Men in Black 2″. But it’s sorta lazy. What he doesn’t borrow from “Hellboy” he seems to steal from his own “Blade 2″ (namely a lot of the ending). But this movie is better than “Blade 2″ so I’m not complaining (well, I guess I sort of am). We do see some truly great special effects and makeup work as Del Toro shows us the hidden realms of magical creatures, but this just leaves us wanting more. The set pieces are fine, but they didn’t take my breath away as they should have. Despite the unique characteristics of those doing the fighting, this film’s fight scenes seem pretty standard. The creature work is awesome, I just wish those creatures would have been given more to do.

Not only that, but Del Toro devotes a lot of screen time to his usual preoccupations. Namely clockwork devices, weird little insect things and anything that happens underground. Most of this movie takes place underground in the standard Del Toro realm of caves and tunnels. “Mimic” was set in the subways. “Blade 2″ spent a lot of its running time in the subways. “Pan’s Labyrinth” had a few trips underground (but less than I had expected) and both Hellboy films trek below the surface an awful lot. Enough already! Guillermo needs to find a new venue. He needs to go spelunking and work his underground fetish out in reality, then make a different kind of movie, because as good as he is, his need to set his movies in subterranean environments is getting pretty damned ridiculous. He’s been tapped to helm “The Hobbit” for executive producer Peter Jackson and, when I heard this, my first thought was “At least the cave scene with Gollum will be bad ass”. Seriously, Guillermo, consider this an intervention: come into the light for God’s sake!

Other than these gripes, “Hellboy 2″ is an entertaining, though rather slight, affair with great effects and some truly great moments (the opening sequence is nifty as is a great, drunken Barry Manillow sing-along between Hellboy and Abe Sapien). The relationship between Hellboy and his lady love Liz (Selma Blair, no better than she’s ever been) is pretty underdeveloped (all they seem to do is fight for reasons that are never completely explained), and if you hadn’t seen the original Hellboy you would learn nothing more about his character from this outing. But a lot more screen time is devoted to the aquatic psychic Abe Sapien. Most of the film’s pathos comes from the relationship between the water-bound Abe and a “daughter of the Earth”. The moments involving these two characters are the best in the film.

“Hellboy 2″ is a fine trifle of a film, a nice lark, let us say. But the original “Hellboy” (though not without its own problems) had a bit more charisma, a bit more ramshackle charm, and a more intense villain and villainous plot. It’s got the plot and themes of an episode of “Angel”, but it’s not quite as good as the average episode of “Angel”. All in all, however, it’s not a bad way to spend an afternoon (though I’d probably save evening admission prices for “The Dark Knight” which looks pretty friggin’ good).

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.