HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY

(2008)

directed by Guillermo del Toro

 

reviewed by Adam Armstrong

09.03.2008

 

A bedtime story that becomes a nightmare.

An ancient truce is about to be broken by the Elf Prince Nuada (Luke Gross). The truce holds back the Golden Army, an army of 4900 clockwork type robots that can repair themselves as they are damaged. While the BPRD is trying to contain an attack from Nuada using tooth fairies, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) is blown out a window and blows his cover. Hellboy quickly finds that the world doesn’t like him and he has to save them once again. With his teammates Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), and a new addition Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane, suit actors: James Dodd and John Alexander), Hellboy has to fight off the Golden Army. But how do you beat something that can rebuild itself right away?

This is a great flick with plenty of low-brow fun mixed with a few insights that cast a fog of thought over the audience. The special effects were truly amazing; I think that we’re beat over the head with CGI nowadays and it is nice to see a movie that is not driven by it. For some reason, the lack of CGI makes things seem more real to me (could be a childhood where I grew up watching Die Unendlichte Geschichte [The Never Ending Story], Labyrinth, and The Dark Crystal). The action is well balanced and the movie actually carries a good plot and good acting. I would watch this over and over again.

Better than the first, buy a ticket: 5 out of 5