HELLBOY 2 – THE GOLDEN ARMY

Spanish director Guillermo del Toro clearly has fun with noisy, action-heavy saga (Review by Billy Suter, courtesy of The Mercury)

Spanish director Guillermo del Toro, who gave us the spellbinding fantasy-drama Pan’s Labyrinth, reportedly turned down the chance to direct I Am Legend and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to create this sequel to his Hellboy, a 2004 hit inspired by Mike Mignola’s Dark Horse comic series.

Del Toro is clearly having a lot of fun with it, pulling out all the stops for a sensory overload, relishing his increased budget, as he delivers a noisy, action-heavy saga which, borrowing heavily at times from Star Wars, explodes with fabulously fantastical creatures and weird machines.

A villain with the ability to pose as an old woman to eat cats; a talking infant that is actually a tumour and not a child; a giant beanstalk-like forest God called an Elemental that terrorises a baby; an army of glowing machines able to rebuild themselves after being slain. Not to forget trolls, goblins, a mammoth rock creature, an Angel of Death with multiple moving eyeballs in its wings . . . and nightmare variations of the Tooth Fairy.

All find place in a high-gloss tale of a battle for Earth between humans and elfin inhabitants of a fantasy realm, a revisiting of an ancient battle told to our title character as a boy by his adopted father (John Hurt).

Now, with the red-skinned and yellow-eyed Hellboy (Ron Perlman) an adult and married to fire-generating Liz (Selma Blair), the fantasy realm folk are getting itchy feet to leave their forests and reclaim Earth from humans. Hellboy, Liz, their trusty fish-man sidekick Abe (Doug Jones) and vapour-like adviser Johann Kraus (voice of Seth MacFarlane) decide to sidle with humankind in the battle that ensues with white-haired elf hunk Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) and his golden army of robots.

Del Toro, who is lined up to direct The Hobbit, a prequel to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, has created a fun romp which fantasy fans are sure to lap up.

He also provides one of the most unexpected, and rather amusing, scenes of the year – the bulky Hellboy and fishy Abe getting tipsy on beer and singing along to, of all things, Barry Manilow’s I Can’t Smile Without You. (7/10) - Billy Suter