Hellboy II: The Golden Army by Paul Bullock

One of the more frustrating habits film critics indulge in is to attribute a film‘s success solely to one person. Actors, directors, producers; they all take the limelight in an industry populated by armies of people whose work often goes unheralded. Sometimes, however, the old cliché is perfectly apt. Ever since garnering critical applause with his 1993 horror Cronos, Guillermo del Toro has become one of modern cinema‘s most unique and recognisable auteurs. Whether it’s the vampires of Blade II, the chilly horror of The Devil’s Backbone or the historical fantasy of Pan‘s Labryinth, you know when you’re watching a del Toro film, so clear is the director’s presence in every second of celluloid.

Hellboy II is no different. Rich with imagination, this sequel to the 2004 original is very much a del Toro picture. This, in part at least, is because of his lack of elitism. Despite its pulpy origins, knowingly cheesy dialogue and mainstream origins, del Toro has approached this not as the fun but dumb cousin of Pan‘s Labyrinth, but its equal. Sure there’s not the same amount of intellectual subtext as that film, and, like its hero, it doesn’t want to do much more than shoot a big gun, beat up some monsters and have a damn good time doing it, but its creator’s love of fantastical locations and magnificent monsters that was so clear in his previous film is still apparent here, and it’s easy to get swept up in that boundless enthusiasm.

Make no mistake though, this is no clichéd monster mash. While most films that deal in the dark and fantastical tend to paint their characters with the same brooding tones as the gothic sets, del Toro takes great joy in exposing the banality, flaws and vulnerability of his players. Hellboy, his dark, flaming introduction automatically undermined by a sentence revealing his love of television and chocolate, is first show as a bucktoothed ten-year old eagerly anticipating the arrival of Santa Claus at Christmas. He listens intently to a bed-time story told to him by his father (a cameoing John Hurt) and when it‘s over, he climbs into bed not with the cuddly teddy bear such a sentimental scene seems to demand, but the oversized gun that goes on to become his trademark.

It’s this blending of normality and fantasy that del Toro uses to great effect in the film’s emotional core: it‘s love story. While many filmmakers would struggle to make compelling a hackneyed plot in which the slobby boyfriend (Hellboy, again played to great effect by Ron Perlman) struggles to clean up his act to keep hold of his partner (Selma Blair‘s Liz Sherman), who herself is facing some pretty big decisions in the shape of a pregnancy, del Toro understands how to offset that against the fantastical to great dramatic and satirical effect. So instead of normal resolutions and regular characters, we have Hellboy being told to grow up by an officious German gas-being trapped in a mechanical suit, and Liz fearing that her child will be persecuted because it’s likely to be a half-demon, half-firestarter monster. Knocked Up this ain’t!

Being a comic book film, of course, it’s not all touchy feely emotion; there’s a great apocalyptic threat to be taken care of, and being a del Toro film, it‘s pretty out there. Luke Goss takes the role of albino prince Nuada who wants to raise a group of mechanical warriors (the titular Golden Army) from an underground tomb in order to take his banished people into the real world and overthrow humanity. In the course of this, del Toro introduces us to a vast array of beasties, including flying fairies who strip their foes down to the bone - and beyond - and a giant plant monster that will put kids off broccoli for life. Admittedly, del Toro’s indulgence in these magnificent creations makes the delicate structure meander and some of the plot-lines waves, but its easy to get swept away by their sumptuous beauty and forget some of the film‘s fairly pressing flaws.

Despite this grand spectacle, Hellboy II may be a victim of comic book jetlag after the wild successes of Iron Man and Dark Knight, but perhaps that’s a good thing. Del Toro’s fellow superhero helmers Christopher Nolan and John Favreau could, you feel, settle nicely into the mainstream, their films proving so successful essentially because they‘ve softened their characters’ comic booky nature to please a less niche audience anyway. A talent as unique as del Toro’s, however, may just be crushed by the gargantuan budgets and need for a guaranteed hit that big-name studio blockbusters demand. And were that to happen, cinema would lose one of its great one-offs. I mean, who else would be mad enough to have a hell demon and fish monster drunkenly singing along to Barry Manilow before a battle?