Review of Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) by Jordan D — 10 Mar 2018

After feeling underwhelmed by the first movie, I hoped that the second movie would be as good a sequel as everyone made it out to be. They were right, this...is a good sequel. Ron Perlman shines as the titular character and I already had a feeling that the movie would entertain me because of its opening sequence. This is something I love about movies. Animated opening sequences for when live-action footage just won't cut it that show exposition that will be important later and likely come to bite the good guys in the ass. Such an amazing way of telling people the backstory. The action is more excitiing than the first movie, the makeup department did a fantastic job not just with HellBoy and Abe Sapien but also with the other fantasy creatures, mainly the trolls. They could've just pulled a George Lucas and CGI'd them there...but Guillermo del Toro was having none of that. Whenever CGI WAS used, it was incredibly well-made. The humour is more consistent and Seth MacFarlane (well, his voice) steals the show as a Johann Kraus. It was even more exciting than that cartoon I saw with the paranoid CIA agent, an alien and a German goldfish. But without falling victim to the spotlight-stealing squad trope that everyone feels Brian and Stewie fall under nowadays. My one criticism is that there are two subplots but one of them is hardly touched upon and one of them just disappears sometime later. The latter involves Hellboy wanting to be popular, just so you know. But hot damn, this movie's awesome. Maybe del Toro is not as overrated as I thought he was outside of Blade II. Bring It on "The Shape of Water" and "Pan's Labyrinth".*.

*This does not mean that I'll be reviewing these movies soon, I decide when they come to be.