From Hell It Came!

With a name like "Hellboy," it's got to be good.  (Film Review)

The Upside:  Wild, imaginative movie with a heart.

The Downside: Story's not so clever, but after 5 minutes you won't care.

    Any competent filmmaker can make a movie with special effects.  It takes someone with talent to get those effects to earn their lunch money.  Here in the days of the constant 1 and 0 onslaught, the difference may be a little less than self-evident, but it can make the difference between a summer blockbuster and a good summer blockbuster.  Even with a name like Stephen Spielberg and the muscle of one of the largest production houses in Hollywood, May's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ladled on giant ants and, well, one of the most overblown dénouements I've seen recently, but didn't come anywhere near being fun, inspiring, or even remotely creative.  It became the kind of overworked dead zone we're seeing too much in films- plenty of technical prowess, maybe to a degree that the craftsmanship can be considered art, but everything else is as programmed as Java script.  In the new generation, what a tragedy it is that we have the ability to create entire worlds, but often forget the vision.

     Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a summer movie, and don't you forget it before you go around comparing it to director Guillermo del Toro's Oscar-almost triumph, Pan's Labyrinth.  That means it banks a lot of money and a lot of grace on attitude and things blowing up, but what matters here is what isn't left out.  We're taken to a troll market laying in the brickwork beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, a kaleidoscope of fantastical creature both in and out of dreams and mythology where the plot by the underworld to subvert the human race has been hatched.  This one sequence is a catcher not just because of the awe, but because it's indicative of del Toro's whole approach to telling a story.  It's also evident of a director who has an Oscar nomination to hang around his neck flexing his creature feature muscle, because whether or not you think The Golden Army is an equal follow-up to del Toro's 2004 surprise smash original, there's definitely more of everything involved, that everything was going to be done his way, even if it meant portions of the movie looking like a Jim Henson landslide.

    And this is fine by me, because del Toro's a smart cookie and never treats the gothic fairy tale sheen like window dressing, nor does it over-saturate to the point of oppression.  It all works to enhance a story that, let's face it, is not the biggest draw in this bustling marquee.  It brings back to the forefront Hellboy (Ron Perlman), the goateed demon rescued from the otherworld during World War II and raised by his altruistic adoptive father, Dr. Broom (John Hurt), who formed an elite government agency to use Hellboy and others with "peculiar" talents to combat the forces of evil.  The storyline doesn't buck that much from the first film, or just about anything in based-on-a-comic book genre.  Baddies, in this case a sniveling Elven prince named Prince Nuada (Luke Goss- heavy on the pancake makeup), on the search for an ancient artifact that will render them with unlimited power to wage vengeful war against humanity.  Their gripe?  Apparently they're not too keen on their habitat being torn down to make way for an Applebee's (shhh... don't tell Glenn Beck!).  Hellboy and his allies, sentient fishman Abe (Doug Jones) and smokin' hot (literally) Liz (Selma Blair) rally to defeat the menace.  Hurrah, hurrah.

    As I said, this isn't Pan's Labyrinth so don't expect any allegories except the stop-destroying-the-Earth plea that's barely even there.  This is cool, because what del Toro is the real master of is what's between the lines, woven in amongst the threads.  The Golden Army isn't just a marvel, it's also bustling and alive and everything from Nuada's hulking lackey with a spring-loaded ball and chain for an arm to the haunting Angel of Death (blind, yet still all-seeing with wings festooned with eyes) we're provided a feverish look into an imagination that neither feels random or calculated.  Like Tim Burton, del Toro has an affection for the intersections where the humorous and the grotesque collide (take the moment in the aforementioned troll market, and the creature Hellboy mistakes for a baby).  Even if everything else here went to seed, it would be worth the price of admission for the rollercoaster ride to see one visual treat after another, the best of which involves the new bureaucrat assigned by Washington to look over Hellboy's affairs.  His surprise I won't spoil, except Hellboy sums him up with a clever variation of the word "a**hole."

     In the first film, it was the attitude that made it stood out- Hellboy may have been a creature conjured from the darkest regions of the netherworld, but he tackled his day-to-day work of putting down devil dogs or, in this case "tooth fairies" (they literally like to eat teeth- and everything else) with the I've-got-a-job-to-do surly, ironic aplomb of a plumber.  Here Perlman keeps up the same front of a hard-bitten hero and Perlman's own natural caustic nature dipped in a Good Humor vat carries miles of distance for him.  Its no surprise Hellboy likes cats- he puts on the same act of aggressive independence when all along he just wants someone to like him, not an easy case when he's leaving gigantic holes in city streets and his live-in girlfriend Liz's toothbrush in the cat food.  He's a lot like Will Smith's Hancock without the drinking, and it isn't a reach that he and the rest of his motley, wanna-be-loved crew of "freaks" begin to grow on you.

    Blair and Jones are back, although this time Liz's own demons get short shrift as Abe begins to fall for Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), Nuada's twin sister who's trying to stop her brother's apocalyptic designs by withholding the key to the so-called "Golden Army," a battalion of over-sized wind-up robots locked away in secret for millennia.  Other than the prologue featuring a resurrected Hurt recounting the tale of their creation to a young Hellboy, a story cooly acted out with marionette puppets, this provides one of the best set pieces to the film, when these hulking monstrosities come to life, their movements clunky, but their gears and servos glowing with what seems like the fires of Hell.  It's a wow.

    So is the whole movie, because this isn't Night Watch which could cook up some crazy stuff but couldn't make you care about who it happened to.  Maybe that's the magic of men like Peter Jackson and del Toro, and why del Toro seems like the perfect guy to make the upcoming The Hobbit; he can create worlds that'll make you say "damn," but never forgets that they are just a small part of his movies' soul.  A-