Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) Director - Guillermo Del Toro; Starring - Ron Pearlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Seth McFarlane, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, Jeffrey Tambor; Screenplay - Guillermo Del Toro from a story by Guillermo Del Toro and Mike Mignola; Rated PG13 for language and some violence; see trailer here.

At the risk of dating myself, after seeing Hellboy II, I could not help but find myself thinking of a vintage Saturday Night Live sketch. Dan Ackroyd and Gilda Radner are arguing over whether a new product called Shimmer is a floor wax or a dessert topping, before Chevy Chase comes in and informs them Shimmer is both in one convenient package. That is what it felt like watching Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

"It's a love story! No, it's an environmental treatise! No, it's a commentary on outsider status and possibly even gay marriage!"

"Actually, it's all of these things and more!"

And in the same way I would never give Shimmer a chance if the product did exist, I really do not feel like I can give Hellboy any kind of enthusiastic recommendation.

Hellboy II starts with a trip back in time to Hellboy's youth. The young demon is being told a bedtime story by his adopted father Professor Bruttenholm (John Hurt briefly reprising his role from the first film). Bruttenholm's tale recounts an ancient war between humankind and the kingdom of Elves. Man had the upper hand until the ruler of the Elves, King Balor, commissioned the construction of the titular Golden Army.

Flash-forward to the modern day, some time after the events of the first film have passed. The Bureau for Research and Paranormal Defense is still home to its heroes Hellboy (Rob Pearlman), his lady love Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), and the merman/empath Abe Sapien (Doug Jones). The Bureau goes about its business in trying to save the world in secret, shielding it from the unusual beings that aid in the defense of mankind.

Or at least the Bureau is trying to. Hellboy, full grown but never fully mature, makes the Bureau's efforts on that front considerably more difficult. He shows no discretion in his work. He seems to be actively trying to be found out, he wants the world to know who he is and what he does. Hellboy is also having issues making things work out in his relationship with Liz. The two seem to be constantly at cross-purposes, leading to a perpetual state of domestic discord.

Meanwhile, Prince Nuada of the Elves (Luke Goss) has had enough of mankind. Convinced that men only hold greed and hatred in their hearts, Nuada sets forth to reassemble the crown, awaken the Golden Army, and destroy mankind. After claiming his father's portion, Nuada's sister Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) flees their kingdom to prevent Nuada from gaining the final piece. She enlists the help of Hellboy and his compatriots in attempting to derail Nuada's plan.

The things that work in this movie's favor are tied directly to Del Toro's gifts as a visual artist. The same vivid imagination that spawned the breathtaking and frightening visuals in Pan's Labyrinth and the original Hellboy is in overdrive in this film. Whether it is the menagerie of creatures in an underground troll market, an earth elemental rampaging near the Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Army itself, Del Toro knows how to translate his vision marvelously to the screen.

There are points where it almost feels like too much, where the visuals really overwhelm the story itself, most notably in the troll market. But I can forgive that due to the payout on the screen. The earth elemental scene is nicely done, even if it is pretty obvious CG work, and it finishes with a flourish that impressed me greatly. And the unveiling of the Golden Army is impressive as well, as is the final battle between Hellboy and Nuada.

Del Toro and his long time cinematographer Guillermo Navarro work very well together, making sure the composition of each shot is just as it needs to be to have the maximum impact. This is true whether the scene in question is a spectacular fight between the principles, or even a basic shot to catch the emotion on Liz's face. On the latter, the focus shifts slightly at a key moment, bringing a billboard in the background into focus and showing a message that is relevant to Liz's feelings in that moment. That sort of work is subtle and effective.

Yet for all the eye candy popping on screen, the story that ties all of this together is underwhelming as a whole and brings the entire experience down as a result. For myself, that all comes back to the ineffectiveness of the love story between Hellboy and Liz. Looking back at some personal writing I did about the first film on my old blog, one of the things I noted then was being tremendously underwhelmed with the performance of Blair, something I attributed to her character being a little underdeveloped in the first film.

Del Toro still has not found a way to make Blair's Liz a compelling figure in any way, and there just does not feel like there is real chemistry with Pearlman's Hellboy. They do not feel like they are a squabbling couple so much as playing at being one on a bad TV sitcom. When a development occurs that causes Liz to have to really evaluate where she and Hellboy are as a couple, we should feel just as torn as she ostensibly is about what to do.

Instead it feels like she is sleepwalking through the choice, and it becomes even more obvious how lethargic her performance is when she must deliver important news to Hellboy that is predicated on a decision that could affect the future of the entire world. In that moment, with the stakes so high, we get a line that could have been written by someone penning Hellboy fanfic, and the moment just falls flat. No drama, no emotion, just...blah.

The lack of chemistry gets punched up even more when the screenplay tries for laughs in regards to the Liz/Hellboy romance and how it parallels some of what Abe ultimately finds himself feeling for Princess Nuala. They go for some cheesy laughs in a "male bonding" moment between Hellboy and Abe that just made me roll my eyes for how silly it was and how little I cared about it.

There is a lot of that offbeat goofy humor at work throughout this movie, more so than was present in the first one, and most of it turned me off. The most egregious examples of it are tied to the latest addition to the team: Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth McFarlane of "Family Guy" fame). Krauss winds up in the role of the team leader as he attempts to fill the role left when Bruttenholm died in the first film.

As a German in a full body suit, it is obvious the intent is to try and play up tension created from his similarities to Karl Kronen, one of the villains of the first film. I think it is meant to be akin to the discomfort Sigourney Weaver's Ripley felt in dealing with the android Bishop in Aliens, after the events that occurred in Alien and the role the android Ash played in making those events happen. Simply put, Krauss is there to stir up bad ghosts in Hellboy's mind.

And yet what we get in the finished product is something that feels like equal parts of Madeline Kahn's Lili von Shtupp from Blazing Saddles and the by-the-book captain from any of a number of cop movies. And inn one really painfully stupid moment with Hellboy, one of the Three Stooges. I know I will take a beating from the fanboys for bashing the locker room fight with Krauss and Hellboy, but frankly it is flat out painful to watch. If I wanted to see that kind of brainless slapstick, I would have stayed at home and rented Dumb and Dumber. I am a McFarlane fan, I enjoy "Family Guy" quite a bit. I just do not want that sense of humor in a Hellboy movie when it felt like the first one played it so straight up.

And all of these complaints do not even address the principle conflict between Nuada and Hellboy. Nuada as a villain is much better developed as a whole than I felt Rasputin was in the first film. Nuada has all the menace Kronen had working in Hellboy but with actual backstory that I not only follow but also enjoy. He is almost a sympathetic character in terms of the cause he is trying to fight for, which is as much about sustaining his relevance in the world as it is about trying to save nature.

Nuada sees what man is doing to Mother Nature, and his people's importance to the earth has been forgotten over the centuries. It is a critical question that is raised between himself and Nuala: should we destroy everything, or just let go and fade away and leave man to their own sorrows. Considering the stakes, what he is trying to do is understandable, even noble in some respects. And when it comes down to showing he can match Hellboy for power and determination, Nuada is a serious badass. I found myself looking forward to watching them throw down for keeps at the end. And that fight was everything I could have hoped for.

But when the real resolution comes to pass, and Nuala's role in it is revealed, I wanted to cry. It essentially reduces the climax to realizing that if she had taken action before the Bureau got involved, the story would have been over an hour ago in movie time. Why give us a finish that starts out with a bang if you are going to close it out with a truly pathetic whimper?

What it boils down to is that the greatest sin Hellboy II commits is not being anything at all like the first one. It wants to be too much all at once and throws everything but the kitchen sink into the mix in trying to outdo what was accomplished in the original Hellboy. In doing that, I find myself not thinking at all about the first Hellboy, but instead about Spider-Man 3 and how ridiculous and absurd it was. We are not talking about quite that level of disappointment, but it is close.

As good as some superhero movies have been this year (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk), it is disappointing to see one revert so much to the lowest common denominator when it had so much charm in being off beat in its original incarnation. In Hellboy II, Hellboy wants to some degree to be just like everyone else. And it is that reversion to the norm that I find to be its greatest flaw. In the end, I like the big red lug as a freak.

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