Spoiled Reviews

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is a jumble of odds and ends, with genres overlapping each other and visuals fighting for their right in frame. Director Guillermo Del Toro’s second attempt at the franchise is a crowded piece of work, brimful with enchanting creatures. Too bad we’ve seen their kind already, and that their presence has no justifiable purpose in the story.

The director’s Pan’s Labyrinth was striking, the beasts Del Toro breathed into being perfect for the tale of fear and fancy, but it’s starting to look as if he’s a visionary with only one vision.

Hellboy (a heavily painted, wise-cracking Ron Perlman) is a creature from another dimension, destined to destroy the world but still set on saving it, one boogie-man at a time. He and a team of crack superheroes must stop a disgruntled and immortal underground race from waging war on the humans with their indestructible golden army.

Dr. Johann Krauss arrives to lead the super group in search of the golden army. He is a collection of wispy, amorphic gas which fills an old-fashioned diving bell and stomps around in metal boots. Voiced by “Family Guy[’s]” Seth MacFarlane, he is one of the more inspired, and funny, creatures in this chock-full world.

There is a three-piece crown that must be reassembled in order to call the army to life, a love interest in Princess Nuala for the aquatic Abe (Doug Jones), fiery lovers’ spats between Hellboy and Liz (Selma Blair) and innumerable crawling, rolling, scuttling, flying, zipping, and lumbering beasties trotted out to awe and astound us. The creatures may be of the same breed as Del Toro’s others, but alone they still manage to excite our imagination and grudging amazement.

The team sets off on a quest to find and destroy the pieces of the crown. Their search takes them to the Troll market, an underground world created, it seems, for the sole purpose of giving Del Toro a playground to populate. The colors are rich and vibrant, the vendors and their wares so visually luscious you are tempted to stop and stare longer than the zooming camera allows.

They locate Nuala’s twin brother Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) who is set on taking his father’s throne and lording it over the humans. He assembles the pieces of the crown (here come the spoilers) and calls the army to chugging, clanking life. They prove, indeed, indestructible, as Hellboy and his team find out. Of course there is an obviously simple way of stopping the army, which our hero only stumbles to after he’s fought himself into a corner.

He challenges Prince Nuada to the throne, which leads to an epic one-on-one battle where good prevails. Surprised? Me neither. Princess Nuala, who has an eerie bodily connection with Nuada, saves the day by sacrificing herself.

There are a lot of plot machinations and prop machinations, leaving a jumbled plot not quite refined enough for the world in which it is set. In the end, though, the world itself might be enough.

-Cecilia Razak