This is another excellent movie that has come out during the summer of 2008. Guillermo del Toro has done it again. This is a movie worth seeing in the theaters.
Hellboy 2 starts with Dr.Bloom telling a young Hellboy the story of the Golden Army. In old times, Man was at war with the creatures of legend, such as elves. Man is winning the war through shear numbers, when the King has a Golden Army commissioned. This army never grows tired, nor has any conscience to get in the way. A crown allows the king to control the army. The army lays waste to the armies of Man. So much so, that the King feels regret over the slaughter. He signs a peace treaty with Man and splits the crown into 3 pieces: 2 to stay with the elves and 1 to go with Man. The King”s son goes into exile due to his disagreement with his father’s decision. This opening portion of the movie is shown in a style that reminds me of puppets. Very stylized. Like you would expect a fairytale told to a child to be shown.
In modern times, we see an auction house where the prince and his companion, Wink, release a swarm of tooth fairies to cover their theft of the piece of the crown in human hands. In the Hellboy-verse, tooth fairies are small creatures that live of calcium. They are called tooth fairies because the teeth are their first targets. Hellboy, Liz, Abe and a group of agents arrive on the scene to investigate.And the rest you will have to see for yourself.
I will let you in on one fo the new characters introduced in the movies: The Ectoplasmic Man.
Ron Perlman does an excellent job as Hellboy. Doug Jones portays Abe Sapien and handles providing the voice for Abe in good fashion. Selma Blare as Liz does a good job, but they did change the color of her flames for this movie. But that is just a fanboy nitpick. While the first movie was loosely based on the stories: Seed of Desctruction and Wake the Devil, the Golden Army is a new original story by Mike Mignola and Guillermo del Toro.
I did like the first movie better, but this is still an awesome movie. I give it an 8 out of 10.
You can definitely feel del Toro’s touch on this movie. One part did have a creature very reminiscent of one form Pan’s Labyrinth, but it worked for me. Given the Hellboy movies and del Toro’s other movies, I want him to tackle a H.P. Lovecraft adaptation. But looks like he is going to do the Hobbit movies first.
