The 00s action cinema had a before Dark Knight, when any presentable comic adaptation would fill geeks with joy. Now we’re in the after DK, even the right after, when any new comic adaptation is compared with the new (and maybe for a long time to come) reference in the genre.
After the wonders of The Dark Knight, Hellboy II: the Golden Army feels like we’re back to a normal and dull Hollywoodland: Ron Perlman returns as Hellboy to fight a bad Prince from a far far away country who wants to take the earth back from the humans who stole it from his people after blablabla.
This pretty conventional story gives birth to a few interesting scenes like a troll market under NY or the beautiful CGI intro tale, when we see the war between humans and elves through the eyes of Hellboy as a child. Apart from these two scenes and a few nice ideas, the rest… we know too well.
No one can say that director Guillermo Del Toro is lazy, or is not a virtuoso. As Expected the Hellboy sequel tastes like a sophisticated eye candy. All monsters and creatures are particularly beautiful and Del Toro uses special effects with a clever restraint. The Golden Army itself is visually fantastic as all costumes and sets. Pan’s Labyrinth and even the Blade franchise were no lucky break: Guillermo Del Toro stands as of the most interesting film makers of the last years and the movie definitely deserves to be seen for the pleasure of the eyes.
This said Hellboy II’s main problem lies within the story and moreover the characters: Hellboy and his mates have some funny lines but lack the three-dimension that made the DK unforgettable. Hellboy has a pregnant girlfriend, his fishman friend loves the cute princess, but nobody seems to believe in it and in spite of a funny scene when the two monster buddies sing cheesy love songs while emptying beers, you can’t forget that it’s just a bunch of guys wearing costumes in front of a camera. One scene when the hero is wondering if he should kill or not a monster that is the last of his kind could have started an interesting questioning on whether the humans deserve Hellboy’s and other mutants’ help. Could have.
Now that the ultimate super hero movie has been done, maybe it’s time for Hollywood to move on and have some talented people writing and directing something really new.
