This is not Hellboy 2. Much like Spiderman 3 is very difficult to accept as having originated from the same director and writer, Hellboy 2 plays out more like a made for TV movie adaptation of the Hellboy series with an incredible budget. The pacing is not the same, I don't recognize any of the characters even though they're played by the same actors, every interesting and subtle idea has been scrapped or dumbed down, the music is more annoyingly bombastic, the atmosphere is shot to hell and where once was moody shades of blue and deep shadows have been replaced with garish lights. This is to Hellboy 1 what Tim Burton's Batman was the Batman Forever. And oddly enough, it holds together more then it falls apart. This is some...no...this IS the most inventive, realistic, and gorgeous creature work I've ever seen in a film. I just wish it had been in another film where the 'heroes' weren't all arrogant, pugilistic, drunken jerks, the story had some semblance of progression, and the character moments and fantastic sequences were investigated for real emotion and power, not played for laughs or melodrama. Characters don't make stupid decisions in this film because they're stupid. They make them because they're greedy, lustful, lazy, or prideful; not the ingredients for heroes I can care enough about to watch them all the way through without hoping for the way more interesting and emotional villain to cut them into equal thirds so they'd stop whining. This film is spectacle against all reason or logic, a film that literally breaks the rules because it will say one thing, then contradict itself moments afterward. Sacrificing the world for love is alright? Well, not when you do it the WRONG way. Watch this movie once and you'll soon pick out the gorgeous, flabbergasting, magnificent scenes that are unique to this film and wonders to behold. You'll also find the scenes of contrived emotion, blatant unfunny humor, truly weird in jokes that take center stage, characters acting out of character, illogical occurrences, and the surprisingly mean spirited bits of this film which haven't gotten any better with repeated viewing. Once those are found you can fast foreword and rewind to taste to enjoy all the imagination and innovation this movie has to offer, and wish like me it had been pledged to a better story and a better film.
Review of Hellboy II: The Golden Army
