Hellboy 2 The Golden Army (From Surrey Comet)

Hellboy 2 The Golden Army

12:51pm Monday 21st July 2008

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By Mark Foker »

Foker's review on Hellboy 2 The Golden Army

Hellboy 2 The Golden Army can be summed up in two words -great fun.
It’s not the greatest film ever made as far as storyline goes but it is visually stunning and thumping good entertainment.
The three superfreak heroes are back again, working as agents for the Bureau of Paranormal Research & Defence. They include Hellboy (Ron Perlman) the giant red ... well Hellboy, nicknamed Red, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair, who by the way looks hot in her leather catsuit) from Cruel Intentions and Legally Blonde fame who has the power to combust into flames at will but this time she can control her powers and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) the fishy merman who has psychic powers and an extremely well cultured manner (politeness seems to be his main super power!).
However, I understand that his sophisticated voice was actually dubbed by the uncredited David Hyde Pierce (I knew it!). Apparently Doug uses his own voice in the animated version of Hellboy adventures.


This time the trio are joined by another super mutant, Johan Kraus (voiced by Seth McFarlane creator of the hilarious animated Family Guy). Kraus is ex-German commander who we are led to believe once belonged to the SS and has unt dodgy comical Sherman akcent. His true form is a misty entity that lives in the body of what looks like an old fashioned diving suit but with a mechanical head.
Klaus refers to himself as a protoplasmic mystic. I actually think this was a clever bit of casting as it is totally unexpected and weird,you can’t help liking him.


Plot summary: Many, many years ago the human world and the fantasy world were locked in battle until King Balor (Roy Dotrice) of the fantasy world released the Golden Army to defeat the humans but after witnessing the carnage that this caused the king called for a truce and broke up his gold crown that controlled the Golden Army, handing over one piece to the humans and retaining the other two pieces in hope that this will allow both worlds to live in harmony.
Fast forward to the present day and we find the humans living above ground and the fantasy world reduced to hiding under railway arches. The king's son, Prince Nuada no longer wants to hide away and vows to wage war on the human world by releasing the Golden Army but there are a couple of hurdles in his way. The King holds one third of the gold crown and refuses to let his son destroy the peace, another belongs to Prince Nuada’s twin sister Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) and the last piece is somewhere in the human world.


Prince Nuada is wonderfully played by non other than Luke Goss (yes one half of the real life Bros twins). He’s a bit of a revelation actually, he plays a really cool bad guy and obviously seems to have buffed up for this and paid attention in his martial arts classes. As all us Brits know a very pronounced English accent will secure an actor a lifetime of playing the villain in America movies & TV. I thought he was quite a compelling mutant vampire in Blade 2 and I’m pleased he is doing well for himself but c’mon he was crap as a popstar!

After the prince retrieves one piece of the crown from a Manhattan auction room leaving a trail of destruction in his place, the Bureau of Paranormal Research & Defence team are called in to investigate. In this scene the trio are joined by two more agents in suits that have a last name but no first name and might as well be wearing bright red Star Trek tops because you know they have less than a 50 per cent chance of walking out of the building intact.
The team travel to the fantasy world to stop Prince Nuada from destroying our world but Hellboy must struggle with his unfriendly acceptance by the humans he is trying to protect and the fantasy world where he is regarded as one of them.

Director Guillermo Del Toro has a good eye for the weird and wonderful and the creatures that populate this film are a good mixture of prosthetics, animatronics and CGI. We even have one or two nightmarish characters who look as though they have just walked in from Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.


The fight scenes and set pieces are exciting and extremely well done. The humour is still here and Ron Perlman is obviously enjoying himself more in this sequel with twice as many wise cracks and my Foker’s 'look out for moment’ is the Barry Manilow moment (I’m not making this up!) with Hellboy and Abe.

All in all a good nights entertainment. I would class this as fantasy-comedy.

Go and see it!

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