Review of Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) by Phil H — 09 Feb 2012

Monster mash springs to mind with this sequel hehe its good, plain and simple. With a better story line and more action this Hellboy is a better animal than the first. The film looks really good, its dark, gloomy and goth and at the same time bright, full of imagination and kinda mythical. Everyone looks great..'old Red', 'Abe', 'Liz' and newcomer/leader of the team the 'Professor Krauss'. The effects and makeup are really nice on all characters and some monsters yet lacking on others.

Some creatures do look a little plastic or rubbery (in the troll market) and kinda basic really. Yet the bean monster and tooth fairies look smooth and sexy haha.

Other ideas are clearly from Del Toro, maybe too much so as it reminds you of 'Pans Labyrinth' abit. Another little gripe is the troll market which to be honest is a slight take on the 'Star Wars' cantina/Mos Eisley scenes and [I]Diagon alley[/I] from 'Harry Potter', and it doesn't look as good as either mentioned.

Its a cracking film overall which looks so much nicer than the first and is much more easy to take after the weird Rasputin based baddie plot last time, this seems much more fluid. I just wish they would make it abit darker for the adult audience, this film yearns for a slightly edgey feel, the humor is great but its still alittle childish. A touch of blood and gore, just a hint of nastyness or grim goth violence haha.

Nothing extreme like 'Robocop' but along the lines of 'Blade' maybe, but not as serious as 'Blade'. Maybe for Hellboy 3, lets just hope we dont have a Hellboy and his kids plotline or we will be in for a family based plot *groan*.