Hellboy returns better than ever

Hellboy II: The Golden Army breaks the monotony of the summer movie season. Sure, it’s based on a comic book and we’ve seen enough of those already, but it glows with originality and sparkles with imagination.

It’s one of those rare movies that compel us to dream and wonder. The tone is darker than a dream — it seems to be prying at the very gates of hell — but it is filled with imagery that, when compared to the likes of Hulk and Spider-Man, is downright classic. Above all else, it’s got a lot of heart for its heroes, for the women they love and even for the villains, who are never given fair shakes in these superhero movies.

Credit goes to two people: director Guillermo del Toro (soon to be directing The Hobbit), a man who is clearly earning every letter in his title of visionary, and Ron Perlman, a forgotten actor who plays the title character with a charismatic snarl and sad, lonely eyes. Perlman, whose main source of income the last decade has been voicing video game characters, has one ardent fan who’s never given up on him — that fan: del Toro. The two of them work magic together.

To review, Hellboy is some sort of red devil ripped from another universe by a well-meaning scientist who then adopts the powerful creature as his son. Red, as his friends call him, could be Lucifer's stepson for all we know: he has large horns on his dome that he files down with a power sander, a forked tail that must make for uncomfortable sitting positions, and an oversized mitten of rock that serves as his right hand. He looks as evil as any fantasy baddie, but he’s a big softy who adores kittens and warm, pillowy pancakes. The scientist, who has since died, enlists Red as a government agent to battle the forces of evil. All this is information from the first Hellboy, the energetic first chapter in what is shaping up to be a trilogy of films.

We pick up with Hellboy as he still battles supernatural forces for a secret government program with initials I can’t remember, nor care to mention. The big guy lives with his new girlfriend, Liz (Selma Blair), whose mood is manifested through flames that sometimes explode from her body, a cool party trick if it didn’t internally combust guests. They live down the hall from Abe Sapien, a fish-like man with gills who reads T.S. Eliot and Faulkner while sober, but garbles Barry Manilow lyrics with a little Mexican beer in his fish belly. They are led by a human played by Jeffrey Tambor, who plays Jeffrey Tambor but with more exasperation (surprisingly this is possible), and also Johann Krauss (voiced by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane), a man made of ectoplasmic smoke who is contained in a large diving outfit.

I’ve described five characters and it only scratches the surface on this visual marvel of a film. Characters of all different sizes, shapes and with varying numbers of heads make all kinds of strange appearances in Hellboy’s bizarre world. One villain looks like a large walrus and he has a metal fist on a chain that can shoot from his forearm. The fist, apparently with a mind of its own, then spider walks back to to its home to be cocked into place inside the creature’s arm. There are also little round-headed mantis creatures that devour men’s teeth by way of the abdomen. The creature feature gets especially interesting as it snakes into a secret underground trading market and dozens of other beings make small cameo-like appearances, including a man with an entire city growing from his head and a brute with a sweet-voiced infant growing from his stomach. “You have a cute baby, sir,” Red tells the beast. The baby responds: “I’m not a baby, I’m a tumor.” The scene has already been compared, by del Toro himself no less, to the Mos Eisley Cantina scene from Star Wars; it’s completely accurate.

Hellboy II does a curious thing with its villains: it gives them humanity and compassion. When a giant tree grows from under the Brooklyn Bridge (Betty Smith would be proud) and begins tossing cars at Red and his crew, there’s a moment where the camera lingers on the tree’s demise just long enough that you feel bad for it. And watch what happens to its body when life leaves it — everyone, even the person who killed it, admires the beauty that it spills. The main villain is the devious Prince Nuada, who’s actions are wrong, but maybe not his intentions. By the end of the film, we’re questioning whether or not his outcome was warranted or not. I liked this element of the film; it was interesting that del Toro would play with our expectations of the characters. He also hinted that maybe Red, whose hand unlocks the Apocalypse, is in for a rough ride in his next outing.

I’ve yet to mention the plot: it involves Prince Nuada’s quest to turn on the Golden Army, a military force of 4,900 robotic super soldiers made of wind-up parts, intricate gears and tiny locomotives. Red has to sort this all out, amid his own personal dilemmas with Liz, before the army goes online and attacks the human race. Perlman lets his Hellboy, whose face is carved from red granite, handle it in strides, trading bravado with stupid-funny comedy moments — Perlman is the perfect choice for this deviant superhero.

Hellboy spends much of the sequel shooting and crushing things, which is not to say it's at all like last month's tantrum-throwing Incredible Hulk. While the big green guy growled two-syllable sentences ("Hulk smash!") this big red guy faces the world with a certain skepticism but also a vocabulary that has progressed past pre-school. He's a strong and capable fighter, but he wins fights purely to be more stubborn than his opponent. This is something he prides himself on, which is maybe why his new roomie, Liz, can't seem to let their troubled relationship congeal past the obvious problems ("You look like Satan. I sweat magma."). And Red never does the dishes, which even in superhero households can cause an argument. We're introduced to their relationship just following one of Liz's fiery outbursts, after which Red plops on their bed and lifts up the sheets so a dozen scorched cats can vacate from their hiding spot. "Is it the cats?" asks Red, locked in a domestic give-and-take. The film gives them a plausible romance and then gives us ample room to fill in the blanks, like how she could become pregnant with Hellboy's spawn. I'd love to see that Sears portrait.

Visually, this is one of the most spectacular movies of the year, filled with enough “oh wow” moments to keep you muttering through the entire picture. Every sequence contains some kind of visual treat: be it the opening titles of hammering white-hot gears, an impressive storytelling sequence with wooden puppets, a giant gatekeeper made of stone, Red’s destruction of the army, the automatic regeneration of the army or, in a scene reminiscent of del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, a nightmarish creature with eyes everywhere but where eyes are supposed to be. Much of the film is CGI, but its computer effects are done so well that they mesh completely with the physical stunts and Perlman's large prosthetic physique. In every medium, in every format, Hellboy II is too inventive for its own good.

I loved this movie. And I know specifically why: it was designed, from the bottom up, to be visually mesmerizing. And, frame by frame, it is.

***This review originally ran in the West Valley View July 11, 2008.***