Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

Brief: Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) returns from exile to claim the crown of Bethmoora, which will allow him control of the Golden Army. His twin sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) takes her third of the crown and runs. She winds up in the care of Abe (Doug Jones), Hellboy (Ron Perlman), and Liz (Selma Blair), who have to contend with a new boss, Johann Krauss (v. Seth MacFarlane), when it is deemed that Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) can't control them.

Full disclosure: I've never seen Hellboy. I've never thought much about it one way or the other, but then writer-director Gulliermo del Toro made Pan's Labyrinth, and this movie seemed to be getting an awful lot of positive buzz. I was told that it is unlikely that I need to see the first in order to follow the second, but I have come to suspect that that may not be the case.

I certainly don't think I need to see the first movie in order to understand the characters and their relationships to one another. del Toro, lovely man that he is, (re)establishes the central characters and their relationships quickly and easily. The Hellboy costume takes some getting used to, largely because the mouth doesn't seem to move when he is talking, but you do get used to it.

It's the stakes that are beyond me. Liz, and her wonderful, three dimensional ways, has to make A Big Decision (I know because a billboard behind her told me), and it's a big, dramatic moment that has no dramatic tension. Without going into too much detail, she has to choose a side, and I never doubted which side she would choose nor did I understand why anyone would choose the other side (and I'm on it by default). Prince Nuada is mad because we suck at taking care of the earth and because we're greedy? Can't fault him there. The big climatic fight at the end that turns into a small, less climatic fight? Doesn't make a lot of sense. When you can think of an easier solution and you realize that the only reason it isn't employed is, well, what would they do with the other 20 minutes, it robs what you are watching of whatever dramatic tension it was supposed to have.

The end product is strangely airless and inert, as though I was waiting for the plot to start only it was ON from the word go. The movie functions at a remove; nothing seems to really matter. Still, thanks to del Toro and co., it's not without its visual appeal, humour, and fun. B+