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Premise: Hellboy and the BPRD have to save mankind from a vengeance-driven elf prince who threatens to unleash an unstoppable army.
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Stars: Ron Perlman * Selma Blair * Doug Jones * John Hurt * Jeffrey Tambor * Luke Goss * Anna Walton * Seth MacFarlane
Review: Another amazing achievement for Guillermo del Toro.
Hellboy (Perlman), Liz (Blair), Abe (Jones) and the rest of the BPRD investigate an attack by tooth fairies and follow a trail of leads to a vengeance-driven Prince Nuada (Goss) who feels that humanity has broken an ancient truce and must be stopped. Along the way, a fourth member, Johann Strauss (voiced by MacFarlane), joins the crew, replacing Manning (Tambor). Princess Nuala (Walton), twin to Nuada, seeks their protection in order to prevent her brother from achieving his aims.
There are humourous moments - especially when Hellboy and Abe get drunk over the fact that they're both in love and the women they love are driving them crazy - and tragic moments - when Hellboy faces the last of the forest gods and has to decide between humanity or his "kind" (the supernatural races). The fight scenes are more dynamic and entertaining than the first film (Mr. Wink vs Hellboy definitely beats the Sammael vs Hellboy fight). The humour in the fight between Strauss and Hellboy is not to be missed.
Del Toro allows the visual imagery of the fantastical to further evolve - the Tooth Fairies, Mr. Wink, the Fragglewump, the Chamberlain, the Angel of Death, Cathedralhead, etc. - all build upon characters and artistic work done for previous films; one can easily see the influence of characters from Pan's Labyrinth upon the gallery of creatures presented in this film. Long spindly fingers, eyes detached from heads and placed in interesting locations, man-in-suit characters as opposed to pure CGI creations, etc. abound in the film.
Other influences also appear - the eye candy in the movie is appropriate to the genre: the forest god easily brings to mind films such as Princess Mononoke by Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki; the destruction of a source of power at the end of the movie brings to mind the Lord of the Rings; the fighting style of Prince Nuala reminds one of any number of kung fu films from the Jet Li or Jackie Chan era - Once Upon a Time in China, etc.
While the film may not make as much bank as direct mainstream films may - Iron Man, etc. - the film is true to both the nature of Hellboy himself and the vision of del Toro. Truly an artistic achievement.
Overall: Good
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