Hellboy II: The Golden Army is back and is a sequel to the 2004 movie Hellboy with Ron Perlman reprising his role.
SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Hellboy and members from BPRD in "Hellboy II: The Golden Army"
The movie begins with a bedtime story told by human dad when Hellboy was still a kid. The father tells a tale of the Golden Army which consists of 70 times 70 indestructible robots which equal 4,900 indestructible robots which were made by a goblin during a war between the human and the elves for King Balor (Roy Dotrice). When the Golden Army had crushed many humans to death in a battle, the king decides to part the crown which control the Golden Army to three pieces — one given to the human, the other kept by him and the last piece by his daughter, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton).
Back to the future, there is an ongoing auction in New York of antiques. One of the items is one part of the precious crown. Without wasting any time, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) and his servant, Mr. Wink (Brian Steele) intrude the auction house and kill every human in there by letting go thousands of tooth fairies. It was known that the tooth fairies consume anything from calcium to bones, meats and of course, teeth!
When Hellboy and his aquatic friend, Abe Sapiens (Doug Jones) along with his pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) reaches the auction house, no surviving humans are left, instead the tooth fairies hide themselves before launching relentless attack at the members BPRD and manage to consume at least two men from BPRD.
Back in the fantasy world, Prince Nuada defies his father’s truce between humanity and the invisible realm by saying he wants to claim back Earth, and in order to do that he needs all the three pieces of the crown. He takes no time and slaughter his dad to gather at least two pieces of the total three. Before Prince Nuada finishes off the king, the princess has already fled the scene with the last piece of the precious crown only to be followed by Abe Sapiens into a secret building, not knowing that Mr. Wink, Prince Nuada’s faithful servant is following behind.
During a fierce battle between Hellboy and Mr. Wink, Mr. Wink ends up being dragged into a giant oven of fire when his mechanical hand is stucked as he attempts to punch Hellboy. While the next monster is a gigantic Forest Elemental which is nearly ten-story tall, it provides little resistance to Hellboy who easily kill the creature with his gun.
Even the fighting scene between the Golden Army and Hellboy is quite brief albeit entertaining, Hellboy II is more of a fantasy film rather than an action-packed movie in which the first Hellboy movie is. Perhaps, the main focus in this film is not the impressive visual effects nor the limited action scenes, but it is the development of the character Hellboy. During the fight against the elemental, Hellboy was questioned by Prince Nuada. If he kills the creature, he would be killing the last of its kind — a dilemma which only ended when Johann Krauss (John Alexander, voiced by Seth MacFarlane) notwithstandingly commands Hellboy to finish off the creature. In the last part of the movie, Liz Sherman is faced with a dilemma of whether to let Hellboy lives or let him die after the Angel of Death tells her that Hellboy would be dangerous to mankind as his mission is to destroy Earth in the near future. She embraces her dilemma too quickly and does not hesitate to choose Hellboy over Earth despite the warning.
Overall, it is a great film though it may lack many elements for the demanding audiences. Mind you though, Hellboy II is more than just a fantasy film as director, Guillermo del Toro has put in many thoughts to make the movie more real than any other comic book adapted movies.
My ratings: 8 out of 10.
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2 comments ↓
[...] Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) trailer (July 11) | Hellboy II: The Golden Army movie review [...]
Hellboy is dependably fun; for sure that director has an amazing imagination, reminded me alot of his work in Pan’s Labyrinth
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