The Good, the Bad and the Golden Army - My Hellboy 2 Review

So I saw Hellboy 2: The Golden Army yesterday afternoon. Now I'm writing a review. You're reading it (hopefully).

My relationship with Hellboy is a weird one. I saw the movie first, then read the comics. While I enjoyed the movie, reading the comics I thought "My god, the movie is nothing like these books!" But I think it gave me a certain perspective on the whole thing. They're simply two separate entities. In fact, I've heard Mike Mignola and Guillermo del Toro say as much: The film Hellboy is not the same as the comic Hellboy, who is not the same as the animated Hellboy. They're different mediums anyway, so who cares? While I'd love to see an animated or live-action Hellboy that 100% captures the look and feel of the comics, I can live without it and I understand that it's simply impossible. Some stuff doesn't translate. My comics are just fine, and I can read 'em anytime I want.

So back to the review. Here's my two cents in regards to The Golden Army... (I'll try to remain spoiler free, but I may drop a hint or two in terms of certain plot elements, so be forewarned)
Visually, this is the most impressive movie I've seen all summer. The last Hellboy pretty much only had a couple monsters, but this one has them in spades. Goblins, fairies, elves, dwarves and more uglies than you can shake a stick at. The Golden Army itself is a magnificent sight to behold, and every fight scene had me on the edge of my seat. I pretty much couldn't tell what was CGI and what was puppets (or guys in suits) throughout the whole movie.

The story wasn't too shabby either. In a nutshell, it boils down to this: Long ago, there was a battle between the greedy humans and all of the mythological creatures. It was brutal, and a truce was struck whereby the humans would get the cities and the towns, and the creatures would stick to the woods and become the stuff of legend. Flash forward to modern times and an elven prince who's not too happy with that arrangement. He wants to take back what is rightfully his, and since you kinda can't help but agree with him, he ends up being a really great villain. The guy who plays him is great too: if Christian Bale and Tom Cruise somehow had an albino baby, it would be this guy.

Anyway, on the other side of the coin, you've got Hellboy, who wants to out the B.P.R.D. He's tired of living in the shadows, and just wants to be accepted. So his story mirrors the elf prince's somewhat (sorry, I can't remember the guy's name), though not in an antagonistic sort of way. He just wants to fit in.

The overall plot is somewhat predictable, and they gloss over a few story elements here and there, but it's stuff that you can figure out on your own and really nothing that made me dislike the movie. It's got a really nice fairy tale element to it, and there's lots of little hints and clues to Hellboy's background and a sense of mystery that I really enjoy in the comics. At times, it feels like a cheap X-Men imitation though, and that I could do without.

Okay, so the bad... yeah, it's pretty much every time the main characters speak. They're not even like real characters, they're walking cliche's. While I thought their motivations were interesting and realistic, their manner of speaking was far from it. You know that scene in the trailer when Hellboy smashes the monster in the face and then he says "Now stay down!"? That's pretty much the whole movie.

I understand that Hellboy isn't supposed to be the sharpest tack in the drawer, but in this movie, he acts like a giant red seven-year-old with ADD. And not a cute and charming seven-year-old: a bratty annoying one. That's really the downfall of this movie. I kind of ended up rooting for the bad guy, because the heroes annoyed me. That's really a shame, because the beauty of the first Hellboy was how much I really ended up loving all of the characters. This one... not so much.

I get the impression that Guillermo del Toro was sitting in his office, or wherever he works on his movies, and he was thinking "I have to make a movie to appeal to the masses. I have to make a movie that will appeal to the lowest common denominator. I have to act as though I am Michael Bay when I write the dialogue for these characters." And since del Toro doesn't really know how to make a bad movie, he just totally overdid it. Hey, I've been known to like a Michael Bay movie or two in my lifetime, but I expect more from a guy like Guillermo del Toro. So it's a bit dissapointing.

But it's not enough to make me dislike the movie. It's a good story, and as I said before, a visual masterpiece. As much as the characters did annoy me, I have to admit that by the end, I was cheering them on. I mean, who doesn't cheer the good guys? Though most of the flick was played in a broad manner, there were still enough little emotional scenes that I began to care just a tiny little bit.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army was a weird movie. In a lot of ways, it surpasses the first one, but in others, it falls far short. I think if you're a fan of the first movie, you oughtta give this one a shot. I had a few problems with this flick, but they didn't keep me from enjoying the overall product, so if you're willing to let a few things slide, you will probably enjoy it as well. If nothing else, it's worth the price of admission for the monsters.