CINEMA: Hellboy II – Part 2

In which Big Red (Ron Perlman) gets a bigger budget and better special effects than the original film and shock horror, Luke Goss gets the juiciest part of his career.

Hellboy (Perlman) and his assorted band of freaks – including firestarter girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair) and man/fish Abe (Doug Jones), are still fighting paranormal monsters here on Earth but their actions are meant to be top secret. Which annoys the hell out of the showboating Hellboy who believes he should be getting the credit for all the bad guys he’s beating, so against orders he makes sure the press get a good glimpse of his mug. Instant notoriety follows, but there’s one bad guy Hellboy hasn’t reckoned on and that’s Prince Nuada (Goss in spooky make-up and Matrix leather coat). Nuada plans to resurrect the fabled Golden Army and crush all of mankind, so now everyone is counting on Big Red while he’s facing a seemingly indestructible enemy.

Director/writer Guillermo Del Toro has taken the Lord of the Rings route here with an epic mythological story of evil tooth fairies, elfish beings and monsters, and set piece battles and underground locations of awesome magnitude and imagination. There’s a really nice spiteful edge to everything but not enough of the great humour that made the first Hellboy movie stand out. That said one scene where Hellboy and Abe Sapien get drunk together while talking about women troubles and listening to Barry Manilow’s Can’t Smile Without You is bound to go down as something of a classic. However, this is nowhere near as deep, disturbing or profound as Pan’s Labyrinth, but it will certainly amuse during this washout of a summer.       Dee Pilgrim