"Hellboy II"

Hellboy II: The Golden Army **

Hellboy made for a surprisingly charming look at an unlikely comic-book hero. It was, at times, the heartwarming story of a literal demon from hell who finds his way to Earth in 1944 after the Nazis employ black magic to conjure him into existence. Rescued by the Allies, he becomes the centerpiece for a secret FBI unit known as the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense.
Sadly for us, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is not even as remotely successful as its precursor. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Hellboy II is an awkward mishmash of plot points and competing narratives. In so doing, the movie ends up losing sight of the one element that really made it work—Hellboy himself.
Based on the comic-book series by Mike Mignola, Hellboy II stars Ron Perlman as the title character—a seven-foot tall, cigar-chomping, trench coat-wearing demon. His super-intelligent sidekick—fishman Abe Sapien (acted by Doug Jones and voiced by David Hyde Pierce)—is back, along with Selma Blair as Hellboy’s firestarter girlfriend Liz Sherman.
But gone—long gone—are the film’s pleasant doses of whimsy and good humor. Instead, we are treated to a wayward subplot involving evil Prince Nuada (Luke Gross) and his twin sister, the benevolent Princess Nuala (Anna Walton). Their kingdom has been torn asunder by Prince Nuada’s wicked ways, and he intends to consolidate his power by bringing an ancient, infallible army of super-soldiers back into existence.
And the only thing that stands in his way, of course, is Hellboy, who is bound and determined—hellbent, you might say—on saving the world from Prince Nuada’s thirst for dominion.
The movie really begins to tank when the filmmakers inject a pair of largely uninteresting romantic sub-narratives into the mix. And with the emergence of every additional strand of subplot, Hellboy’s role in the story is pushed ever further into obscurity.
And then there are the interminable action sequences—many of which feature our hero in the role of a largely extraneous bystander, as opposed to an active participant in the progression of the plot. In short, Hellboy 2 turns out to be nothing more than an unfortunate misstep in what was once a promising Hollywood franchise.