Goin to the Movies; "Hellboy 2: the Golden Army"

Just returned from the local overpriced movie house to see the latest from director extraordinaire; Guillermo Del Toro(Blade 2, Pan's Labyrinth, Chronos) I am of course referring to the sequel to his 2004 surprise hit "Hellboy", a big budget cinematic adaptation to creator/artist Mike Mignola's hit comic series of the same name.

This follow up picture is more about the BPRD(Bureau of Paranormal Research & Defense), the secret government organization that employs Hellboy to do battle with all sorts of supernatural nasties that may spell doom for us humanfolk here on Earth. The story begins much like the first film, with a flashback of sorts, with a much younger Professor Broome(John Hurt) telling a "fairy" tale to a young Hellboy, a tale which turns out as most fantastic scenarios do in this genre as true. The main tale as it were concerns a rebellion waged against the blight that has become mankind by the creatures of the mythical realm led by a renegade Prince(Luke Goss) who has access to an ancient and devastating army of destroyer machines(the Golden Army), he only lacks the control mechanism to activate the slumbering juggernaut-once awakened the army will lay waste to the entire Human Race and return the Earth back to the creatures of the fantastic.

Hellboy with the help of the BPRD must stop Prince Nuada before he completes his mission.

All of the pricipal cast has returned including the main man, uh demon Hellboy ( Ron Perlman), his aquatic sidekick Abe Sapien(Doug Jones) ,Hellboy's main squeeze, firestarter Liz Sherman(Selma Blair), and bureau chief Tom Manning(Jeffrey Tambor), we find out early in the film that agent John Myers(Rupert Evans) from the first film has been inexplicably reassigned to a post in Antarctica.

Unlike the first film which was basically a set up picture re-telling Hellboy's origin, this picture is a different adventure all it's own, specially written for the screen by creator Mike Mignola and director Del Toro this film is much more action packed and is presented in a much bigger scale than the first film involving mutiple plot lines, side stories and a colorful multitude of unforgettable, at least visually, characters I haven't seen since the famous cantina scene in Star Wars .

The movie is visually beautiful, Del Toro and his artisans have once again made a film for artists by artists set in a fairy tale setting much like his award winning "Pan's Labyrinth",a picture I highly reccommend!

Compared to the first film this one has much more action involved especially in fight sequences, and despite a couple of slow scenes the film is fluid in it's action- the big surprise for me is that this film is as much about Hellboy's buddy Abe Sapien(Doug Jones) as it is about Hellboy himself, in fact he's involved with a little romance with a princess in the story. One of the more interesting characters in the film is the introduction of Dr. Johann Krauss(Seth McFarlane), brought in by BPRD chief Manning to help control Hellboy's fiery nature.Krauss was once a coporeal human until an unforseen tragedy reduced him to a living vaporous entity confined to an atmospheric suit.

One of the most humorous and unforgettable sequences in the film is when the good Doctor picks a fight with Hellboy to prove a point.

The film is filled with extraordinary creatures ,settings, and scenarios and if you liked the first film you'll like this follow up. Guillermo Del Toro is an artist himself and it shows on screen and I highly reccomend checking his films out, he has just signed up to direct the big budget adaptation of J.R.R.Tolkien's "the Hobbit" for producer Peter Jackson and his company, and he is a big fan of Hellboy and his creator Mike Mignola and has stated that he would love to do another chapter in this story.

So if you want to go see what a comic book film adaptation "should" look like check out "Hellboy; and the Golden Army"...enjoy the show.