LITERAL REMAINS

Written and Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Time upon time ago, a Goblin built an unstoppable clockwork army of 4,900 soldiers for the King of the Elves which could only be controlled by those of royal blood, via a gold crown, as long as they went unchallenged. The King used them in his war with the humans, and the Golden Army annihilated the humans to such a degree the King made a truce with the humans: mankind could keep their cities, and the elves and other creatures would retain the forests. The crown was broken into three pieces, one for the humans and two for the elves so that the Golden Army could never be raised again. The King’s son, Nuada, didn’t agree with the truce and chose to live a life in exile. In the present day, the Prince has declared war on the humans for breaking the truce, for invading the forests and expanding the human cities, and all but destroying Nature. Nuada steals the first piece of the crown from the humans at an auction house and then kills his father for the second piece. Nuada’s sister, Nuala, escapes with the third piece and by luck she is assisted by Hellboy and his team.

The first Hellboy movie was an overlooked gem of a film, a nearly perfect exercise in fanboy excitement and thrills. The Golden Army takes a distant Silver. The best thing going for Hellboy II is Ron Perlman who was born to play Red, and definitely seems to relish every cigar chomp and one-liner; Perlman is Hellboy as Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones and Anthony Perkins is Norman Bates. The second best thing going for it is the creature design. As with the creatures of the first feature, the monsters here seemed to have popped right out of H.P. Lovecraft’s wet dreams. The action is fast and furious, and del Toro builds a mythology that is interesting and relevant.

What doesn’t work for The Golden Army is how hard everybody seems to be trying to make this movie work. The first film’s charms came with relative ease, Hellboy II feels forced. Bigger, better, more jokes, more monsters, more worlds of fantasy. Sometimes too much is too much. For all the action, the actual battle with the Golden Army is very anti-climatic and pales with everything that came before it. And a deeper issue of Hellboy siding with the humans instead of the creatures is raised but never explored to any significant length.

Hellboy II tries, but is only so much hokum and hex.

3.5 out of 5

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