Right time for my follow post to the last one which covered the superhero film, Hellboy and this will cover its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army. So let's do the usual and give this one a look.....
So a bit more about the story which begins with Professor Broom (John Hurt briefly reprising his role) back in 1955 who tells an 11 year Hellboy a story about war between man and magical creatures and how masters of the Elfland forged a golden army of indestructable mechanical warriors and used it to wage war against humanity. However after humanity was devastated by the army, the Elfland king, Balor out of guilt calls a truce with the humans. The story then moves forward to the present day where Balor's son, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) declares war on humanity and seeks to find the three pieces that will form the crown that controlled the golden army. Nuada finds one of the pieces at an auction and kills everyone there using carnivorous creatures called tooth fairies. Nuada then confronts his father, King Balor for the second piece which Balor refuses to give to him as he doesn't want to start a war against the humans, which results in Nuada killing his father and taking the second piece. However Nuada's sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) flees with the final piece.
Meanwhile Hellboy (Ron Pearlman) is having trouble with his girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair) and with the BRPD having to remain under cover. However during investigating the auction slaughter, Hellboy is attacked by the tooth fairies and he manages to fend them off and reveals himself to the outside world, effectively blowing his cover. At the same time Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) accidentally discovers that Liz is pregnant and Liz swears that Abe should never tell Hellboy. As a result of Hellboy's actions, the BRPD superiors are furious and send another agent to take control of the operation, Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) an ectoplasmic medium. Krauss now in charge tracks the tooth fairies to a troll market, which is a large city hidden underneath the Brooklyn bridge. Whilst at the market Abe stumbles upon Nuala who happens to have the map that leads to the Golden Army and Abe falls in love with her. However Nuada's sidekick, Mr Wink (Brian Steele) attacks Hellboy but is ultimately killed as Wink is diced through a grinder, which causes an enraged Nuada to unleash an elemental forrest god, which Hellboy kills. However the public at this point are not happy with Hellboy as they see him as a freak and Nuada reminds Hellboy that humanity will reject him.
Later on Nuada tracks his sister to the BRPD headquarters due to the fact they have a magical bond with one another. Nuada once inside the headquarters confront his sister and engages in combat with Hellboy and critically wounds him with his spear and with that he takes the final piece of the crown from Nuala and they leave together. Abe however is unable to remove the spear from Hellboy and instead they decide to travel to the location of the Golden army which is in County Antrim in Northern Ireland. On their arrival they meet a goblin who tells Liz that the spear can be removed from Hellboy and he takes them to the angel of death who tells Liz that if Hellboy lives, humanity will be doomed, and it is up to her to decide and Liz decides to remove the spear, which the angel of death does. And from here Hellboy, Liz, Abe and Krauss go on to confront Prince Nuada and try and stop him from ressurecting the Golden Army....
As a sequel to the original, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is arguably an even better film than the first one and it remains as a highly entertaining movie with plenty of laughs, actions and drama. The film also appears to have a slightly more overt comedic tone to it and in a way it helps boost the film's appeal that it is fairly light hearted. The film also has a more mythical feel to things this time round rather than the Nazis and science experimentation from the first film, this one is more based on folklore and it even echoes in ways Del Toro's critically acclaimed Pan's Labyrinth.
Performance wise the film is again pretty good starting with Ron Pearlman who once again is great in his role as Hellboy, the wise cracking, red skinned demon who despite his appearance is the good guy. Pearlman has plenty of highlights in the film and as a few examples for starters there is the scene where Hellboy is confronted by Krauss as to what his flaw is and Krauss teases Hellboy by saying "I think I can take you" and Hellboy standing not too far away says "Sorry I didn't hear you from all the way over there!". And as Krauss taunts Hellboy further, Hellboy smashes the glass casing to Krauss's helmet, which causes his ectoplasmic gas to fly out and Krauss seemingly appears to die by collapsing, but instead all of a sudden the locker doors keep opening in Hellboy's face and body (one of which makes an indent of his face!). And as Krauss reappears in ectoplasmic gas form and walks away Hellboy says "Glasshole!". Then there is the scene where Hellboy and Abe get drunk and Abe admits he is in love with Nuala and Hellboy persuades him to have a beer and Abe says "But my body is a temple" and Hellboy says "And now its an amusement park. Have a beer!". Then there is the scene at the troll market where Hellboy beats up one of the trolls till they finally talk and Hellboy's fight with Mr Wink who ends up amusingly getting diced in a grinder. Another good scene is when Hellboy takes on Nuada in combat at the BRPD HQ and Nuada asks him what his weapon of choice will be and Hellboy lifts his big stone hand and says "Five fingered Mary!". And later as Hellboy takes on Nuada again, because Nuada and Nuala are physically linked, if Hellboy kills Nuada he would kill Nuala along with him, so Hellboy says to Abe "I'm not gonna kill him, Abe. But I'm gonna kick his ass!".
Selma Blair again however is the weak link in the cast although she does do not too badly in her role as Liz, Hellboy's pyrokinetic girlfriend, but clearly there are some scenes where you realise she isn't the best actress out there. However Blair still does have some good moments such as the scene where Liz takes Hellboy to Northern Ireland and the angel of death prophesises that Hellboy will doom humanity if he survives and she will suffere worst of all and Liz emotionally says "I'll deal with it, now save him". Another good moment is near the end of the film (SPOILER!!!!) where Liz takes the crown of the Golden Army just as Hellboy is tempted to wear it saying "all that power..." Liz says "Don't even think about it!" and melts it with her pyrokinetic abilities. And Blair does also have some good on screen chemistry with Pearlman as Liz and Hellboy may make an extremely unlikely couple but somehow it seems to fit.
Doug Jones is excellent as Abe Sapien and he this time he takes full credit for both Abe's physical and vocal presence as the aquatic humanoid with psychic abilities. Jones has some good moments as well such as the scene where Abe get's drunk with Hellboy and as they drunker Abe stumbles to get some beers from the fridge and says drunkenly "This is the last one!". And Hellboy drunkenly talks fondly of Liz and says "She's it, Abe. I would give my life for her... but she also wants me to do the dishes!" and Abe says "I would die and do this dishes!". Then there is the scene near the start of the film at the BRPD headquarters where there are many agents experimenting and trying to contain some wild monsters and the BRPD director Manning says to Abe "What's going on???" and Abe says "Oh its Friday!". Jones also shows off his impressive flexibility in some scenes as well particularly when Abe tries to evade Mr Wink at the troll market.
Luke Goss is also pretty good in his role as Prince Nuada, the deadly Elfish prince who is determined to wage war against humanity by taking control of the indestructable golden army. Most of Goss's highlights come from the physicality of his fight scenes which are very impressive and Goss himself trained with Jackie Chan to master Nuada's fancy moves. Goss's introduction to the film is also very good where Nuada pulls off some athletic moves and shows his sharp swordsman skills and he turns to his sidekick Mr Wink and says "They're over there. I bought them today. I haven't fed them, at all. I will go up first, you will follow. And remember Mr. Wink, don't be shy". Then there is the scene where Nuada faces his father and tries to persuade him to reactivate the Golden Army and his contempt for the humans "The humans... the humans have forgotten the gods, destroyed the earth, and for what? Parking lots? Shopping malls? Greed had burned a hole in their hearts that will never be filled! They will never have enough!".
Seth MacFarlane also provides an amusing vocal performance as the ectoplasmic medium that is Johan Krauss. MacFarlane has fun with his character's German accent and there is one scene where Krauss taunts Hellboy and says to him "You will learn to obey me, follow protocol and stay fock-yused at all times!" which prompts Hellboy to say "That word "fock-yused" with your accent? I wouldn't use that!". And after Krauss whips Hellboy's butt with his ectoplasmic attacks he says to him "There we are. Your temper, it makes you sloppy. Try to control it, Agent Hellboy. Before it controls you!". And lastly there is what is actually Krauss last line in the film where he says to Manning " Dr. Manning, suck my ectoplasmic schwanzstucker!".
And lastly I will mention Anna Walton who provides a nice performance as the Princess Nuala who falls in love with Abe although ultimately its a tragic and rather doomed relationship. And last of all Jeffrey Tambor is great in his reprised role as the BRPD director, Tom Manning who has a tough time trying to control Hellboy's antics. And in Manning in one scene expresses his annoyance to Abe ""Undercover." Can't he get the meaning of the word? I mean, we are still government-funded, we are still a secret, although a dirty secret, if you ask me. Officially, we-do-not-exist. So, you see, that's the problem when we get these!". And Manning shows Abe a photo of Hellboy posing giving a "peace" sign "And he posed for this one, and gave an autograph. I suppress each photo, cell phone videos, they cost me a fortune, and then they show up on Youtube... God, I hate Youtube!".
Finally getting onto the film's director, Guillermo Del Toro does another excellent job here and once again he confidently handles the film's action and also provides a nice mix of fun, suspense and drama. Del Toro also does well with adding the elements of fantasy to the story and it gives the sequel a different feel than the first film. And lastly the music score by Danny Elfman is quite good but in typical Elfman style it is a bit too loud and overbearing at times and as such can grate on your ears a bit as well.
So as for Hellboy II's flaws........... well there isn't anything too major to moan about but there are one or two minor niggles. First of all I felt that the scene where Hellboy and Abe get drunk that whilst it is funny when they sing Barry Manilow's "Can't smile without you" together its a bit cringeworthy and all of sudden we've stepped out of the Hellboy film into some kind of weird music video! And it certainly is the one moment in the film where the movie does not benefit from its usage. I also thought Johann Krauss was bit of an annoying character overall even though MacFarlane provides some good vocal work, it is a pretty cliched archetypal German accent which can be a bit grating to listen to. But that aside there's not too much else to complain about.
And that's it for my look at Hellboy II: The Golden Army which if anything improves on the original film as it is a very enjoyable follow up to the original and it begs the question when will they get around to doing Hellboy 3???? Well theren has been talks off and on about it over the last few years with Del Toro talking of being involved but so far it has not materialised so we can only hope it isn't too far away, especially as this somewhat underrated franchise deserves a third chapter.
So that's it for now and I will be back sometime soon with another post.
Bye fer now.
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