Constant Viewer: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Constant Viewer would think lines like “I’m not a baby, I’m a tumor” would be a whole lot funnier if it weren’t for the fact that countless young women have been taught to treat their unborn children exactly in that manner. Still, in the context of the Troll Market in Hellboy II: The Golden Army it’s a pretty clever line. It’s a pretty clever movie, for that matter, even if director Guillermo del Toro may have spent just a little too much time playing Rock’em Sock’em Robots as a boy.

Hellboy II is, after all, a boy’s movie based on a boy’s comic book. Okay, so as comic book characters go, Hellboy is on the other side of the comic universe from Nancy and Sluggo if for no other reason than he actually is funny occasionally. As is the movie. Ron Perlman reprises his Son of Satan turned government agency good guy (an oxymoron, CV knows) with plenty of the right sort of attitude, which is to say not too damned seriously. The rest of the principals from the first move are back, too, and CV was disappointed only in Jeffery Tambor’s character not being nearly as bureaucratically smarmy as before. As for new team member Johann Kraus, IMDb lists no fewer than three actors participating in what is essentially Robbie the Robot with a case of magical gas. CV notes for his fans, among whom CV is not to be counted, that the Kraus character voice actor is Seth MacFarlane. This explains the gas, at least.

As for the story line, Hellboy and his Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense teammates are called to the rescue when the prince of an ancient magical kingdom attempts to break a truce with humanity by reassembling a crown that will give him control of “70 times 70” supposedly unstoppable Rock’em Sock’em Robots Mechanical Warriors. The prince isn’t such a bad fellow, really; he just feels that human beings have taken over too much of the planet. His father and twin sister oppose breaking the truce and a family squabble of mythical proportions ensues. Oh, and there are a couple of love stories kinda, sorta going on in the background, too.

Del Toro obviously has a flare for fantasy yet keeps his tongue firmly planted in his cheek here even as he puts the characters through their more or less predictable paces. Hardly a great film, Hellboy II manages to keep from taking itself too seriously well over ninety percent of the time and settles sensibly for being a fun ride in Summer Movieland.