celluloidnotes

Hellboy II: The Golden Army has all the makings of a great summer comic book film. A solid cast that works in their roles, a great director at his best, a great crew making spectacular special effects and prosthetics, yet, even with all this talent, it’s is not difficult to discern why this film is a failure. Everything in this story comes easy. A group behind me at the early screening mentioned that this film should maybe prompt a new rating, not suitable for people over 16.

The effects in the film are fantastic, and Ron Perlman is very capable as the devilish and conflicted Hellboy, even Jeffery Tambor’s comic relief is a welcome shtick, yet it still can’t manage to come together. There is a noticeable improvement upon the first film, most noticeable the look of the film is spectacular, the trolls, elves, and monsters are amazingly rendered, true style. The main issue in this film seems to be that the script was written by a focus group with little imagination. The story is predictable and stale from the opening flashback. Moment to moment in the film there is enough foreshadowing for a six-year-old with a blindfold to figure out what will happen next. While the action and visuals are a vast improvement upon the first installment, the glaringly stale plot prevents the film from ever really taking off. There is a lot of potential in Del Toro’s Hellboy franchise, but it just hasn’t been fully realized yet. But it was great popcorn fare to prep everyone for next week’s The Dark Knight premiere.

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