HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY.

So, the first one was decent and entertaining. This one, on the other hand, was that and more. Hellboy II starts off with a young Hellboy being read a fairy tale by his ‘father’, Trevor Bruttenholm (John Hurt), about the Golden Army and its origins. Flash forward to present day, and Hellboy (Ron Pearlman) is having some issues with his new relationship with Liz (Selma Blair). But when they, along with fellow friend and teammate Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), get called in to look at a crime scene with no survivors, they soon begin to realize something dangerous is afoot. Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) is attempting to reassemble all the pieces of a magical crown in order to bring back and take control over The Golden Army, though not if his twin sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), has anything to say about it. Though after a little mishap that reveals Hellboy to the public eye, the director of the paranormal agency, Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor), brings in Johann Kraus (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) to attempt to keep Hellboy in line.

As I said, the first movie was decent and entertaining, but this one takes it to another level. It’s not as dark as the first one, though. In fact, it’s a lot lighter with more fantasy and fairy tale aspects instead of the nitty-gritty demons, Nazis, and evil Russians of the first. In fact, there’s even a scene in a Troll Market that is somewhat reminiscent of mixing Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley with the Star Wars cantina. And the beginning with Abe and Manning walking through the department reminded me of something out of Men In Black.

The visuals are amazing, as per usual with Del Toro. There is some CGI, but there are far more puppets and costumes than computer graphics (at least from what I noticed), which is nice, because it’s not an overwhelming sensation of fakeness. There were even some really creepy parts, such as the Angel of Death sequence, which I loved. And one of the issues I had with the first movie was that it felt like I was cheated out of the battle scenes, especially the final battle. This time, I didn’t really feel like that (okay, maybe once). But the final battle was long, entertaining, and quite acceptable. Oh, and we finally got to see some cool moves from Abe at one point in the movie, though it’s very brief. Still, it was cool, nonetheless.

The humor from the first movie is still here, as well. In fact, there might be even more. The movie had me laughing out loud quite a few times, specifically the Hellboy/Kraus ‘fight’ and the Hellboy/Abe ‘moment’ (I don’t want to give it away, but you’ll know what I’m talking about).

The acting was a little stiff at times, but not too often. I was glad to hear Doug Jones’ voice for Abe. The villain of the movie, Prince Nuada, actually had some depth to him. He wasn’t just your typical revenge-seeking baddy. In fact, I could compare him (and a lot of the movie’s themes) to that of Magneto from X-Men. There were quite a few parallels, actually, to the themes of X-Men and the themes of this movie. And yes, when I said Seth MacFarlane, I did mean that Seth MacFarlane. But you really can’t tell (at least, I couldn’t).

Overall, I really enjoyed it. I found it much better than the first one, and I wasn’t left with a feeling that something was missing. Selma Blair still could have been given a bit more to do action-wise, though. She got some cool special effects with the fire, but that was about it. So she was nice to look at in more than one way. But yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A Keanu 'Whoa'