A DVD Review of "Hellboy II: The Golden Army"

This summer has been an interesting one for the super hero genre of movies. There was the excellence of "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man," two movies I can certain conceive actually earning some respectable Academy Award nominations. At the same time there was also the relatively mindless fun and carnage of "The Incredible Hulk" which was a movie I went in not wanting to like and found myself having fun in spite of myself.

Amidst the carnage and the excellence, there fell the movie "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" and it is now available on DVD. It brings back all of the main characters you enjoyed from the first movie including Ron Perlman as the red guy with the bad attitude and hellacious birth story and visionary director Guillermo Del Toro.

Del Toro is, without a doubt, one of the most amazing visual directors around. It seems as if his imagination knows no bounds when it comes to visualizing some of the most amazing and memorable movie monster around. His "Pan's Labyrinth" is still one of the finest adult fairy tales you are ever likely to see. He directed the first Hellboy and with the bigger budget afforded him in the sequel, he really goes all out.

You hear a lot of people talk about a movie being a "feast for the eyes" but this movie really delivers on that phrase. There are some truly amazing movie monsters. Most of them look like extras Del Toro had kicking around in his head after "Pan's Labyrinth" including a creature, featured near the end of the movie, who has no eyes but wings loaded with them.

What is the plot, you ask? Does it really matter? OK, if you really want to know. Apparently, countless years ago there was a war waged between humans and the various mythical creatures that are the stuff of fairy tales. After a horrendous slaughter the king of the fairy creatures commissioned the creation of a huge mechanical golden army that could be controlled by a crown worn upon his head. After seeing the destruction this army created, the kind felt guilty, sought peace with the humans and broke the crown into three pieces.

Can you guess what is happening in the modern day? Yes, the king's son wants to renew the war against humanity, resurrect the golden army, and conquer the world. It's up to Hellboy and his buddies, Abe Sapien, and Liz Sherman and new guy Johann to save the world. You see, and as you may remember from the first movie, they work for a special government organization that exists to fight just these kind of threats. It's supposed to be a secret organization, but during the course of this movie, they become publicly know.

The Red guy is also in a relationship with Liz, who can burst into flames and set things on fire with her mind. It is when the movie pauses between the visual wonders and tries to focus on that relationship that the movie staggers just a bit. It feels a tad forced, as if Del Toro and the others who wrote the movie felt they had to throw in a few scenes showing their relationship and how it was going.

However, there are relatively few of those scenes. What we have then are memorable scenes where the red guy is fighting thousands of tiny carnivorous creatures that will make you think twice about the fairy tale Tooth Fairy. Or the wonderful elemental creature that comes to life near the Brooklyn Bridge and wreaks havoc and, yet, also garners our sympathy.

If anything, the Golden Army itself is a little disappointing after all of that. They seem rather bulbous and not quite as intimidating as the build-up seems to indicate. Still, it is a small quibble for the wonderful and inventive things that lead up to the final conflict.

Is the movie in the same league as "Dark Knight?" Not in this reviewer's mind. It also does not approach the surprise and delight in "Iron Man." It does manage to achieve a bit more movie art, however, than "The Incredibly Hulk" and, quite honestly, deserves to be seen just for the scene between Hellboy and Abe Sapien singing "I Can't Smile Without You" by Barry Manilow.