The latest installment of the Hellboy series, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” was released Friday, rising to the No. 1 spot in the box office and bringing in nearly $36 million over the weekend. In the film, Hellboy, the demon creature conjured by the Nazis, embarks on yet another adventure to save the world from the forces of evil. Hellboy (Ron Pearlman) is aided in his quest with the help of his girlfriend Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), the telepathic fish-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), and the new addition to the team, the by-the-book ectoplasm creature Johann Krauss (Seth McFarlane). Fans of the shows “Family Guy” and “American Dad” will recognize the voice of Krauss, because McFarlane is the creator of both shows and voices many of their characters. Guillermo del Toro, director of both this sequel and the original, gained notoriety in 2006 with the release of the fantasy adventure “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which won three Oscars and received more than 60 award nominations. Influences from “Labyrinth” can be seen in the organic nature of the mythical creatures in Golden Army as compared to the creatures in the original film that were mostly mechanical in nature. The setup of the film takes the audience back to Hellboy’s youth, detailing a supposedly fairytale story of an ancient battle between man and the elf people as told by Hellboy’s adopted father (John Hurt). When the audience is returned to the present, we see the rise of the evil being that only wishes to cause harm to mankind. At this point, it becomes clear Hellboy has his hands full. The procession of the film follows along as expected in this genre, the being and Hellboy running into each other at various points in the film, while Hellboy and his team try to stop the being from doing something bad. The build-up, of course, then leads to a show-down in a dark cave where Hellboy and the being finally fight one-on-one.
It might seem like the film is boring and droll, a carbon copy of a dozen other films with virtually the same plot. Toro uses his talents, however, to make the characters more interesting and entertaining in order to keep the audience in the story. Throughout the film Toro uses comedy and everyday situations to make the characters seem more human, which allows for subplots that ring true with the audience. The tension between Hellboy and his girlfiend Liz and also Abe’s new love interest lead to a scene where Hellboy tries to hand Abe a beer. Abe responds “No, no, my body is a temple.” Hellboy rebukes, “Well, now it’s an amusement park.”
This type of humor is typical of the film though the dialog contains very little cursing and is fairly family-friendly which is a little unbelievable considering the fact that the movie is, after all, based around the character of a cigar-smoking, beer-drinking, devil creature. The production of the film makes the story easy to follow while entertaining at the same time, allowing anyone even those who are not “Hellboy fans” to enjoy it. The Hellboy character originates from Mike Mignola a writer-artist for Dark Horse Comics who first introduced him in 1993. Since its inception the Hellboy comic has spawned numerous books, a video game for Xbox entitled “Hellboy: The Science of Evil” and the movie “Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron,” both of which feature the voices of the three main characters in the films, Pearlman, Blair and Jones.
Andy Koenig can be reached at [email protected].
