Movie Review: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

I confess, I've never read a Hellboy comic (except for the Hellboy/Starman/Batman mini-series years and years ago). It's not from lack of interest, the premise of a demon working for a covert organization charged with dealing with supernatural threats is right up my alley. I've just never gotten around to picking up any of the trade collections to read. I did, however, see the first Hellboy film and liked it a great deal. So, when I saw that a sequel was coming this summer, I knew I'd be going to see it.

In Hellboy II: The Golden Army creatures of myth, such as elves, trolls, even tooth faeries, are tired of humans controlling most of the world and plan to go to war against humanity using an indestructible Golden Army. Hellboy and his comrades at the B.P.R.D. are charged with stopping them. It should come as no shock that a movie by Guillermo del Toro is spectacular to look at. The visual style and imagination on display is truly impressive. Interestingly, the first Hellboy film was on TV over the weekend and I ended up watching it. I couldn't help but notice how different the color pallets of the two movies are (isn't that a really geeky thing to notice? I'm kind of proud of that). Now, some of that might be attributable to the difference in quality between a TV screen and a movie theater screen, but I do think that there is a real difference and I think it was a very clever choice. In the first movie, the story revolves around a Lovecraft inspired mythology and the movie looks very dark, lots of blacks and grays and dark blues. Hellboy II is dealing with creatures of European mythology, an earthier, more nature-based mythology. Appropriately enough, there are lots of browns and greens in the sequel. The tonal difference in color seems to mirror a difference in the emotional tone of the films as well. The first movie felt a little heavier, a little darker. Hellboy II seemed to have lightened up a bit. That's not to say that the movie is light-weight, not at all, there's plenty of action and drama to keep things interesting and exciting.

So, did I enjoy Hellboy II? Absolutely, I had a lot of fun and, if the applause I heard at the end was any indication, so did the rest of the audience.