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February 12, 2010
Friday Rewind: Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
***Originally posted on July 30, 2008***


Should I see it?
No.


Short Review: You know how you thought the first one was going to stink but it didn't? This is the movie you thought you were going to get the first time.



The original Hellboy film was a pleasant surprise. Almost to a person, everyone I know who saw the first film said something to the effect "I thought it was going to be lame but it was pretty good." If you're holding out for another such surprise, I'm here to tell you to you can move on.

The film is pointless sequel. It doesn't expand upon the relationships and story developed in the first film and it doesn't create enough new content to stand on its own. After some spryness to open the film, the whole production lounges back into tedious fight sequences and nonsensical fantasy mumbo jumbo.

Hellboy and his cohorts stand up for humanity when the mythical world beings to rebel. Apparently, humans and all of the extras from Lord of the Rings used to be at war and this and that happened and eventually the mythical creatures were all sent underground. Well, now they're cranky and coming to take over. The mythical folks are led by the aggressive Prince Nuada who looks like the demon spawn of Edgar Winter and acts just like a over reaching character actor stuck in a poorly written role that is still beyond the grasp of his talents. Prince Over Actor, confronts Hellboy and friends in well designed sets and perform some practiced fight choreography.

Written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro, the aesthetics of the film are top notch. The man is a great designer. Visually, there's nothing to find fault in, visually its a treat. His script is the failure of the production. Del Toro's script is predictable, forced and not befitting his design or his cast. Ron Perlman in particular seems almost bored by the expectations of his dialog. In the original film he was given an interesting character to fulfill and he clearly mined the role for everything it was worth. In this film, Perlman is given little to work with and therefore doesn't produce much beyond some grunted one liners and a sense he should be doing more. On top of this one conflict doesn't smoothly lead to the next and its not clear how they all work as one cohesive path to the final fight. This gives the film a stuttering, disjointed feel that never settles down long enough to allow for any real development to take place. Del Toro would have had the same flow if he had a title board pop up between scenes that read "...and then this happens!"

I wanted to enjoy this film. Del Toro is one of the strongest filmmakers working right now, I have high regard for his vision and his craftiness. Unfortunately, he misses his mark here and wastes a strong cast. Rewatch the first film and skip this one.





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