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I’ve always been puzzled by descriptions of Guillermo Del Toro’s breakout hit, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” as a fantasy movie. Despite questionable metaphysics and short-lived glimpses into a world of fauns, fairies, and “Silent Hill”-type monsters, the film is, at heart, a fairly straightforward wartime drama. But there’s no questioning the fantasy pedigree of “Hellboy II.” Epic machinery and a formidable menagerie of imaginary creatures – from humanoids with architecture growing from their heads to stone giants that double as the secret entrance to long-lost cities – makes “Hellboy II” the dizzying phantasmagoria people believed “Pan’s Labyrinth” to be. Think of the cantina scene from Star Wars, filtered and magnified through Del Toro’s own unique imagination.
It’s the filtering that makes “Hellboy II” something of an odd beast in itself. “Hellboy” contented itself with faithfully re-living “Seed of Destruction,” Hellboy’s original story, but this superior sequel creates a divergent Hellboy universe with a story that is not rooted in Mignola’s comic. Del Toro takes the characters from the first film – Hellboy (Perlman), of course, fishman Abe Sabien (Jones) and pyrokinetic Liz Sherman (Blair) – adds another character from the comics – the medium Johann Kraus – and pits them against elves bent on reviving an invincible golden army and reclaiming the Earth for themselves. Insofar as it’s an excuse for Del Toro to parade his bestiary and that this is his playground more than Mignola’s, “Hellboy II” staves off most of the jarring that comes from adapting characters and stories from one medium to another. What jarring there is comes almost entirely from Montse Ribé’s atrocious, but mercifully short-lived, performance as a young, over-excited Hellboy – a miscalculation on Del Toro’s part that almost derails the movie before it gets going.
This Time He Is Different
But for all that “Hellboy II” is Del Toro’s movie, what Mignola there is isn’t free of translation errors. The comic’s general mood of mystery and dread – Lovecraft done right – is lacking, for example. Johann Kraus isn’t pitched quite right; he retains his ectoplasmic nature along with the necessity for a containment suit, but the nice guy from the comic is given a more imperious, domineering celluloid personality and an overextended role as de facto field commander. Maybe it’s Seth MacFarlane’s grating voice or Del Toro’s eventual change of heart in regards to Kraus’ role in the film; either way, the character illustrates the disconnect that drives the oft-repeated complaint that adaptations are rarely equal to their source material.
Disconnect aside, the film delivers a rousing, if ultimately formulaic, “save-the-world” adventure chock-full of exciting FX-driven stunts and some satisfying character work – Hellboy and Liz with a chuffing relationship, Abe falling in love. Yet while it is a finely evocative Del Toro piece, it isn’t Mignola and, in the grand hierarchy of “comic book movies,” isn’t quite on par with the sheer exhilaration of “Iron Man” or the thoughtful maturity of “Hancock.” Like its predecessor, “Hellboy II” is an A-lister’s fun-loving B-movie. And with uncut plot threads left dangling, the film also follows in the tradition of sequels like “The Empire Strikes Back” or “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” by setting up yet another sequel. Also in that same tradition: the film leaves ’em, as they say, wanting more.
Entertainment Value: ** (out of two)
Technical Quality: ** (out of two)
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Written by Guillermo Del Toro and Mike Mignola. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro. Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Anna Walton, Luke Gross and Jeffrey Tambor. 120 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and some language).
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