Movie Review: Hellboy II
Chris Hewitt - Saint Paul Pioneer Press
Jul 11, 2008
Hellboy II: The Golden Army -- ***
There's so much beauty and imagination on display in "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" that it's sometimes hard to tell if you're watching an action movie or a museum exhibit called "The Artistry of Guillermo Del Toro."
Del Toro, who produced, directed and co-wrote the movie -- and is probably the only director ever credited with "creature voices" -- collaborated on the design with "Hellboy" comic book creator Mike Mignola, and it's a feast for the eyes. With only a couple characters who look anything close to human and only a couple locations that look like anywhere humans have ever been, it's an ornate movie, with tentacled faces, spiky spines and vast, baroque spaces everywhere you look. Beginning with his astonishingly suspenseful "Cronos," Del Toro has always had a fascination with intricate locking devices, impossible puzzles and wind-up toys that morph into mechanical spider monsters -- and he goes wild with all of those things here.
The danger of all that craziness is it can be overwhelming, and "Hellboy" occasionally falls into that trap. Del Toro is so jazzed by festoonery, you get the sense that if you asked him to get you a glass of water, he'd use his own secret method of mixing the hydrogen and the oxygen, add in hand-carved ice cubes flown in from Antarctica and serve it in a filigreed, frozen-water glass that gradually melts in on itself. Meanwhile, you'd be dying of thirst.
Luckily, Del Toro's strong cast can stand up to the stuff whirling around them. Ron Perlman is not an easy actor to cast, as his 8-foot-wide shoulders don't exactly scream "Average Joe," but Hellboy -- a giant, red-skinned superhero who loves candy and TV -- is his Hamlet, a role that allows him to explore a surprisingly broad emotional range. And now is probably a good time to mention that, as much as "Hellboy" is an action movie about a superhero trying to defeat bad guys bent on world domination, it is also a romance (both Hellboy and his salamandery pal, Abe, are lovelorn) and a screwball comedy.
It's Del Toro's cheeky humor -- something he mostly denied himself in "Pan's Labyrinth" -- that helps "Hellboy" glide over the scenes where you wish for a human to look at, or at least a creature with eyes that convey something. My favorite scene is the most human: It involves a baby Hellboy clutches while battling a creature whose head unfolds like an enormous hosta plant. Yeah, the-baby-in-the-line-of-fire thing is a variation on something John Woo already did in "Hard Boiled," but, unbelievably, Del Toro takes the idea even further.
Wait. What am I saying? Of course, it's believable that Del Toro ups the ante. He's clearly a guy who thinks too much of a good thing is a great thing.
Three Stars.
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