Light Shadows

Hellboy II Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Fans of Pan’s Labyrinth will be disappointed to see that Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a return to pop form for writer/director Guillermo del Toro. While the dark austerity and romance of Pan’s Labyrinth made del Toro a legitimate auteur, both of his adaptations of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy comic series are the best indicators of what the creator really cares about. In the spirit of weird writer H.P. Lovecraft, both films insist that if the world’s imaginary gods and monsters are to survive, they need to remain strange secrets.

To do so, Hellboy II embraces the pulp roots of Mignola’s popular comics. With a lot of explosions, one-liners and impromptu mythologizing, del Toro brings to life some very strange, silly and still largely arcane creatures. Mignola’s series may be one of Dark Horse Comics’ biggest breadwinners, but it appears fairly unknown when sandwiched between Marvel and DC Comics’ movie adaptations like The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight. It’s fitting then that Mignola’s comics, like his heroes, should remain hidden from the public eye. His beady-eyed anti-heroes thrive in the shadows that the guardians of the public have banished them to. They’re members of the shadowy Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development, a covert government agency that pits their own team of freaks against despotic creepy-crawlies like an undead Rasputin (Karel Roden) or an unhinged Elf prince (Luke Goss) in Hellboy II. Two of their most prominent resident ghouls are Hellboy (Ron Perlman), the prodigal prince of Hell and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), a cross between The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Leslie Howard.

To remain effective, they must stay out of sight—a notion that doesn’t sit well with either Hellboy or del Toro. Hellboy II attempts to shed light on the unsightly squirming denizens of the dark as Prince Nuada (Goss) threatens to break a millennia-long truce between man and monster and unleash the indestructible Golden Army. Keeping a low profile is tough, what with Hellboy eager to enter the public eye, new additions to both the B.P.R.D. and Hellboy’s family and more unnatural love than del Toro’s previous films (for example Abe, the fish-man loves Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), the pasty elf, who is adored by Prince Nuada, her brother). That unfortunately doesn’t mean that anyone will pay attention. Hellboy II will likely fail because it’s neither what del Toro’s newfound public expects—though there are teeth-gnawing tooth fairies, it’s certainly not a dark fairy tale—nor what most comic book movie audiences want: a hero they can recognize.

In theory, Hellboy II is, however, exactly what a comic-book movie should be. It lets its actions speak louder than their back stories and features an ample cache of weapons, creatures, locales and obstacles for our heroes to contend with. It’s a long sprint through a series of loosely connected episodes that feel like the serialized issues of a comic.

That having been said, Hellboy II also has a comic’s worst attributes. There are more preposterous and convoluted rules than there should be—to rule the Golden Army, Nuada must not only wear his father’s crown but go unchallenged by anyone in his court or any other court—and more creatures per second than is always necessary—because in comics more is usually assumed to be better. Then again, it stands to reason that del Toro would throw as much at the audience as possible here in hopes that it won’t underperform like its predecessor did (domestically, Hellboy grossed a disappointing $23 million opening weekend).

It’s also not serious enough to be anything more than gee-whiz fun whose gentle touch is more slight than light by the end. The heaviest part of the story, the connection between Hellboy’s personal problems and his fight with Prince Nuada, remains mostly assumed and is never satisfactorily spelled out.

This makes it feel like there’s not as much on the line as there was in Hellboy for Hellboy and Liz (Selma Blair), his fire-starting partner in crime, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Somehow, the prospect of becoming parents and choosing to lead “normal” lives does not seem as portentous as it should, even when the Angel of Death makes Liz a very personal proposition. With eyes on his wings and an enamel rib cage, he may not seem threatening enough for anyone but fans of Hellboy, but for the few seconds he’s exposed to the light of day, he looks pretty good.