Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on June 26, 2008, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
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All of Guillermo del Toro’s talents shine through over the entire course of Hellboy II: The Golden Army, but the one that shines brightest is simply this: The man loves to tell stories. That’s not an inconsiderable ambition in a day and age when many megapictures seem content to bludgeon viewers with flash and manufactured intensity, with little attention paid to emotionally engaging the viewer. Del Toro’s different, and that’s clear from the very beginning of this sequel as he delivers the necessary backstory about the titular metallic warriors. Rather than a self-contained prologue, the writer/director presents this history as a bedtime tale told in 1955 by Dr. “Broom” Bruttenholm (John Hurt) to the young Hellboy, whom he is raising since rescuing the baby demon from the Nazis who conjured him up.
Thus, the eye-popping images (CGI tailored to resemble old-fashioned stop-motion) of the battle and eventual truce between humanity and the forces of the fantasy realm are accompanied by Hurt’s marvelous voice serving not as an omniscient narrator, but as a paternal entertainer delivering the saga to little-Hellboy-as-audience-surrogate, and therefore to his “children” in the theater. It’s a subtle but effective difference, and you get the feeling del Toro would love to tell the sequel’s entire story this way.
As it is, his boundless desire to expand on the world and characters he’s extrapolated from Mike Mignola’s comics is palpable, and if his heedless enthusiasm for them occasionally leads him to rush over story points in Hellboy II that might have benefitted from a little breathing room, it overall pays exciting and moving dividends. Funny ones, too, as the filmmaker explores the foibles along with the heroism of Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, also taking over the voice work from the previous movie’s David Hyde Pierce). All three leads slip effortlessly back into their makeup-and-FX-enhanced roles as we rejoin them some time after the original’s events, with Big Red and Liz living together in the former’s cat-infested abode at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense HQ. They’re going through typical relationship squabbles, exacerbated by their status as “freaks”; Hellboy in particular is chafing under the requirement to stay surreptitious, much to the dismay of BPRD head Manning (Jeffrey Tambor, given more and funnier things to do than before).
Their assorted stresses will be pushed to breaking point by the literal and figurative machinations of Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), son of King Balor (Roy Dotrice), ruler of the underworld where magical creatures dwell. Having long seethed under the restrictions of the aforementioned truce, Nuada has now taken the opportunity to seize power by assembling the three separated sections of a crown that gives its wearer control over the mighty and unstoppable Golden Army. Fearing her brother’s megalomania, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), who possesses one of those pieces, winds up in the care of the BPRD—where she catches Abe’s oversized eye. While he struggles with newfound romantic pangs, our heroes also have to deal with the arrival of Johann Kraus, a punctilious and annoying German-accented overseer from the BPRD who’s performed by James Dodd and John Alexander and voiced by, of all people, Family Guy and American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane.
All that doesn’t take into account the many fantastical and frightening sights that have sprung from del Toro’s endless imagination onto the Hellboy II screen. From swarms of ravenous “tooth fairies” that resemble unpleasant cousins of the sprites from the filmmaker’s Pan’s Labyrinth to a huge Elemental suggesting what H.P. Lovecraft might have come up with had he gone “green,” from a Troll Market crowded with odd and idiosyncratic beings (one of whom has the movie’s best line) to the chamber of the Golden Army itself, the sequel conjures up a fully imagined fantasy world that also exists plausibly alongside ours. Del Toro has here commanded a golden army of his own, whose ranks include cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, production designer Stephen Scott, makeup FX head Mike Elizalde of Spectral Motion and a legion of visual FX creators, all of whose work is absolutely topnotch.
And since their work allows us to easily and comfortably accept Hellboy II’s strange-looking denizens, del Toro is free to examine and express what makes them just like us. Hellboy may be able to punch and throw opponents across rooms and Abe can look into a person’s soul with a touch, but they’re both confounded by the mysteries of the heart, and one of the movie’s best moments finds them getting blotzed on beer and comparing notes on how to deal with the opposite sex, to a marvelous musical accompaniment I wouldn’t dare give away. (Danny Elfman’s score, while hitting all the right superheroic notes, also contains passages that wouldn’t be out of place in a ’60s sex comedy.)
This is not to suggest that del Toro has gone all touchy-feely with his franchise; there’s more than enough smashing and bashing, ranting and raving to satisfy the most action-hungry viewer. What sets Hellboy II apart is his love for his characters, his ability to see and convey beauty in the monstrous and the equal weight he gives to Hellboy’s attempts to save his heart and save the world. Perlman proves once again that he’s absolutely the right actor for the role; many could have donned the makeup, but no one else could have brought out the tough, sardonic and playful sides of the character the way he does. Blair makes you truly feel Liz’s inner pain and love for the big lug, while Jones nicely reveals the new shadings brought to Abe. Goss brings genuine vocal and physical menace to his elfin villain, and Walton is luminous as his sister, who puts humanity above family.
The central trio’s emotional passions force them into some hard choices as the story nears its climax, and these setpieces feel a bit rushed; it would have been good to see the characters wrestle a little more with the potential implications of their actions. Perhaps del Toro believed those consequences were more important to the drama, or perhaps he’s simply so on his protagonists’ side that to him, there’s no question that following their hearts is the right choice. It’s that very passion for his supernatural misfits that drives the Hellboy films, and his ability to get an audience to share it that elevates them high above so many features of their ilk.
