Still with me? On with the show. ((Please note that this review is just my silly opinion after one viewing. I don't expect you to agree. I don't even expect myself to agree in five minutes.))
I wish I could say that this review really did stand a chance of "spoiling" Hellboy, but Guillermo del Toro beat me to it. Normally, I hate to blame one person for the failure of a film, but since Guillermo directed it, wrote the screenplay, and shares story credit with Mike Mignola, I think it's safe to say his fingerprints all over it, for better or worse.
It's not fair to say this is a bad movie. It's much more complicated than that. You see, I have the full story, as told me by my good buddy Guillermo himself.
Guillermo del Toro was walking along the beach one day in his native Spain, gazing out over pristine water while feeling the sand between his toes. Just then, as he watched the setting sun brilliantly illuminate the water and cover the sky with gorgeous, vibrant colors, he had an epiphany: he was going to make a wonderful fairy-tale movie in the same vein as Pan's Labyrinth, and he was going to call it The Golden Army. The plot was beautiful, mixing folklore and social commentary: a war between humans and mythical creatures long ago was ended when the king of the mythical creatures commanded an invincible army of machines (the Golden Army of the title) to defeat the humans. (I think the king and his family are meant to be fairies, but that was never quite clear, which I assume is because if you say 'fairy' to an American audience, they picture something sparkly the size of your thumb, with wings). Saddened by watching the slaughter of even greedy humans, the king divided the magical crown of Golden Army-control into three pieces and gave one piece to the human as part of a truce. The humans would stay in the cities, and the mythical creatures would live in the wild places. The king's son did not trust the humans, so he went into exile, vowing to return when the humans broke that agreement. And now, with urban sprawl and deforestation and everything, they have, so he comes back.
And as Guillermo del Toro had this grand dream, he got a phone call from his agent: "Guillermo, you DID remember you have to be working on the Hellboy sequel, right?"
Mierda! thought Guillermo, but no worries: he would just wedge Hellboy into the story and everyone would be happy.
What everyone actually winds up getting is a very mixed affair. The fairy tale story and the visuals are absolutely fantastic; Pan's Labyrinth, but even more spectacular. Top hole. Hellboy and company, on the other hand, are just as mangled as they were in the first movie. Yes, we did lose the annoying British accent for Abe Sapien, played by Doug Jones, but he remains weirdly effeminate and has psychic sensors in his hands. He also listens to classical music and memorizes poetry. Liz Sherman, played by Selma Blair, looks like the actress just took it on faith from her agent to take the part in the first movie, and is now just in it for contractual obligations, even though she never had a clear idea what was going on. Watch any interview with her about the movie, and you'll see her looking vaguely nervous/concerned, probably because she's worried someone will figure out she doesn't know a thing about Hellboy. She looks the same pretty much the whole way through the movie.
"Did I leave the gas on?"
And Johann's suit looked cool, but they really could have gotten someone who actually speaks German. Hint to Hollywood: go to France and go east until you find people wearing lederhosen. These people are called Germans, and most of them speak with something very like the accent you're looking for.
"Hilfe! Mein Deutsch ist kaput!"
As for Hellboy, Ron Perlman does fine, but the script keeps him more or less as the vaguely stupid, wisecracking, immature character of the first movie. I'm no Hellboy expert, but that just doesn't feel right to me.
That being said, let's go back to the fairy tale. The creatures are creative, the plot is actually very touching, and the visuals are fantastic. Prince Nuada, the king's son I mentioned earlier, may well be the most complex and charismatic character in this movie, particularly if you pair him with his sister, Princess Nuala (yes, those are their names; get over it). You can't help but appreciate his English accent, his slick moves, and the deep pathos of his desperate quest to save what's left of the beauty and magic of mythical creatures in this increasingly mundane and banal world. Thumbs up for the movie called The Golden Army.
You might find yourself wishing this guy would just kill the shit out of everything on screen. This feeling is natural.
Hellboy and crew, however, are a source of constant groans and head-scratches (Liz is pregnant via Hellboy, while Johann is a Teutonic stereotype who insists on running things by the book). Everything felt cliche, predictable, or just plain bizarre to me. Hellboy and Abe Sapien have a duet singing, "I Can't Smile Without You" by Barry Manilow while getting drunk, providing some very odd attempts at humor. I wish I could make this crap up. In the first scene, two BPRD agents get eaten alive by 'tooth fairies,' while Hellboy and friends are more concerned about the bad press. When Hellboy discovers the picked-dry skeleton of his former cohort, he says something along the lines of, "Huh." Thumbs down for the movie called Hellboy 2.
The film mentions several times that the Golden Army numbers "seven times seventy" mechanical soldiers. It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that we're talking 490, which is respectable, given their size, strength, and indestructibility, but hardly a massive army. Put in rows and colums, it makes for roughly twenty by twenty-five Golden Machine-Dudes. Try to count how many you see on screen at once in the big finale. I guess maybe they've been breeding ever since they were placed in storage....
Now, if only someone explained to Guillermo del Toro that for gears to work, the teeth have to actually lock into something else, usually other teeth, rather than there being just a big, pretty gear turning in space.
Random note: Tecate beer features so prominently in this movie that I have a feeling the working title of the project was Hellboy 2: Tecate Golden Army.
Final word: Better than the first one, but not as good as Constantine, which remains the best Hellboy movie (even though it didn't have Hellboy in it).
What did we learn today? Mike Mignola should stick to making comics and Guillermo del Toro should just make the movies he wants to make.
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