Rating of
3/4
The Golden Army is a treasure
goodfellamike - wrote on 07/14/08
Hellboy 2 is a visual treat from start to finish, with fully-developed characters, good villains, a strong story and solid technical merits. It’s an adventure extravaganza with plenty of humor, endless originality and sturdy entertainment value. One has to appreciate the love and attention that was put into this sequel, which treats its oddball characters like regular people and allows them to have weaknesses as well as superhuman strengths.
About every five or ten minutes, director Guillermo Del Toro pulls another clever, creative trick from his sleeve and manages to never change the tone of the film: a serious, though lighthearted super hero movie. Even though he allows the occassional, forgivable slip-up: like if Liz can melt the crown, why not have her just melt the third piece carried around by the princess, therefor making the Golden Army useless?
There are creatures that remind one of other Del Toro movies (most notably Pan’s Labyrinth), but it’s a testament to his genius of creativity that the characters can be so similar yet have there own individuality (indeed here, the character of Death looks so much like Fauno from Pan’s Labyrinth, yet his voice, body and personality are entirely different). This facet can also be attributed to another genius of creativity: Tim Burton, who also has several similar creatures in his films. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that both employ Danny Elfman for their music. Final Grade: B+
