Hellboy II: The Golden Army
My great-grandfather, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, had a certain specialty in dealing with hell-hounds. Whether they were in human form, as the pygmy Tonga, or in flaming canine form, as in the Baskerville creature, the world’s first consulting detective was always the first one called. Eventually the denizens of the nether-realm became to common in his business that he would take a certain hell-cat named Kitty on a mission with him (who freely admitted that her address was “Hell, London.”
If you follow the natural evolution of crime-fighting from that Holmes’s day, I suppose it is not too great a leap to hypothesize that a scion of Hell could become the actual officer that the government would use in its investigations. And now that writer-director Guillermo del Toro is exploring his second treatise on such an investigator, it would seem that we have entered a new era of hell-creature.
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is an imaginative feast that sets a new standard for comic-book based movies. Rather than the standard superhero formula wherein the hero is the one magical or scientific wonder in a normal world, usually fighting a foe spawned from his or her very own origin, Hellboy exists in a universe of wonders. Sure, it’s our normal world full of taxi cabs and beer and classic poetry. But there’s also room enough in it for trolls, forest-gods, elves, tooth-fairies, fish-men, fiery females, and men made of gas . . . none of which are ever explained to us, nor do they need to be. When your main character is obviously straight out of Hell, all sorts of things must also be possible. And why not?
The elves are raising a magical robot army to take down the human race, and it’s up to Hellboy and his team to stop them. They are a fantastic four that’s truly worthy of the name, and the resulting adventure puts other superhero movies to shame. It may not have the actors of “Iron Man” or the dark drama of the upcoming “Dark Knight,” but Ron Perlman and Selma Blair have always been worth watching, and a light fantasy adventure is just what a Saturday summer matinee needs.
What Great-Grandfather Sherlock Might Have Said:
“They are hellish things. Look out that you don't prick yourself. I'm delighted to have them.”
Past Investigations
An Introduction to
Mr. Sherlock Holmes IV
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day
In The Name Of The King:
A Dungeon Siege Tale
Fantastic Four:
Rise of the Silver Surfer