Hellboy II: Hell Yes

I loved the original Hellboy. It had a great story and was very true to the comic book series. It was just simply stellar. We understood his plight as a demon walking the Earth and being locked away by the Paranormal Research Group. We got all of that - it worked for us and it was visually inspiring and brilliantly acted. Can I saw as much for Hellboy II: The Golden Army? No - not really.

The movie started out - odd. We got treated to a 1940’s version of Hellboy which, let me tell you, was creepy. It was a sin to watch it - Hellboy with big old buck teeth and he still had one full horn fully form which, considering the size of the kid, would probably snap his neck like a twig. No such luck. This exchange turned into story time while he brushed those big ole teeth. WE heard about the Golden Army from “Father” and while baby Hellboy listened we were treated to an extremely creepy puppet show. The set up was way too long and could have seriously been achieved in more creative ways but hey - it was very Pan’s Labyrinth.

So - apparently Hellboy and Liz were doing the horizontal mambo - I guess you could say she wanted a little tail (sorry, bad pun). They’re living together in nonhappiness. Etc. etc. Hellboy is, as always, a media whore and the powers that be in DC simply do not like it. Same old story.

The Golden Army story was very familiar - in fact - nearly IDENTICAL to Lord of the Rings. The crown used to control this unstoppable army was broken into pieces - some were given to the Elven King and the other to the Human’s. Talk about intellectual property infringement. In any case we were treated to a whole lot of kick ass special effects and some of the best fighting in a movie I have ever seen. That alone was worth the price of a ticket. Hellboy was still funny and the movie, despite some leniency on plot (ala LOTR), was pretty sad.

I definitely recommend it. You can skip the first five minutes or so to take a leak or buy some pretzel bites. Other than those few opening minutes of long winded supposition the movie was great. One scene that stands out is Abe and Hellboy drunk and singing together. Classic.