 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.
This collection
of mechanical warriors threatened to annihilate the entire human race. But Balor was saddened and disturbed by the
bloodshed, and called for a truce. Man
and Elf agreed to leave each other be, and the crown that controlled the Army
was broken into three pieces. Balor held
one and one piece was given to each of his two children. Since that time, the legend goes that the
Army lay silent beneath the earth, never to stir unless the crown is
reassembled.
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.
|
Reviews 
(0 vote)
