*UK EXCLUSIVE* [Movie Review] HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
Wow! One day off from work, two advanced screenings of two films I’m very much up for seeing (this here movie and Peter Segal’s Get Smart) but both are showing on opposite sides of the River Tyne, one is an illegitmate make-shift one but is the film I am most pumped about getting to view, the other is a legitimate advanced preview with one of those “chat” things afterwards (see my reviews for Iron Man and Prince Caspian to get a feel for what they’re like!) but - seeing as one will be starting roughly ten minutes after the other finishes - no matter how many times I stare at my watch, count on my fingers, mentally time the route I’d have to travel through the horrific Tyne Tunnel I just can’t seem to work out a way of being able to see both.
However, if I’d admitted to you dear readers that I’d opted out of an opportunity to see Guillermo Del Toro’s hugely acclaimed Hellboy II: The Golden Army way ahead of its UK release (illegitimate or not!) and went with seeing Steve Carrell, Dwayne Johnson and Anne “My Boyfriend’s Assets Have Been Frozen And I’m Certainly Not With Him For His Looks, So Watch Me Run” Hathaway in Get Smart then I’d rightfully have expected to get my ass taken and handed back to me with many a Stale Popcorn reader’s foot wedged well and truly up it!
However, one “I’m sorry I can’t come into work today - I think I have leprosy” phonecall to my boss later, mixed with many a moving traffic violation and a sequence of running at a pace that made my man-tits jiggle I did indeed manage to catch both Hellboy II and Get Smart on the same day (thanks to a delayed start for the latter!).
You know how this review is going to go. You know just of how high a standard this film is. Nothing I can say is going to convince this franchise’s naysayers to re-evaluate it. Nothing I can say can better the acclaim already out there. But I just want to pull down the methaphorical trousers of Mr Del Toro and brown-up my nose in his anus regardless!
When I reviewed the first Hellboy movie back in our days on Filmrot, I concluded my rave of a review with the following line “… Del Toro has done exactly what any filmmaker could hope for. He has left me positively thirsting for more! And thanks to the strong US box office take for Hellboy, the sequel will be here in 21 months and counting!” Bearing in mind that the review in question was originally published in 2004, I’d say that I wasn’t that far off - only 27 months out! Hellboy II: The Golden Army was more than worth the wait.
I’m going to keep this review relatively short and entirely spoiler-free. I can’t add anything more then what my darling Kristina has already waxed lyrical about in her review. What I will say is this; Within a seven day period I watched only three movies, which is unusual in itself for me. Those three movies over the course of one week were, first, an advanced screening of Wall-E (review pending) a matter of days after watching it illegitmately with my nephew, a ’screener’ of The Dark Knight and a ‘bootleg’ screening of this movie.
Never has the world of movies and movie-love ever seemed better. It’s weird because back in late 2005, early 2006 I was falling out of love with movies and what the “industry” was throwing out at me. I was becoming exasperated at not being able to get access to the sorts of movies I knew were out there but not being made readily and freely available. Every cinema trip bred disappointment after disappointment. And then just when all seemed lost I got hit with the triple whammy of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, the Pixar production of The Incredibles and Shane Black’s directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Suddenly I was being re-introduced to everything that is great about movies and loving movies. My passion for cinema was reignited off of those three films.
Flash forward three-ish years and I’ve started to fall back into that jaded position of old. I’m sick of hearing about genuinely masterful films (like this one for example) and not being given the right to see it on a big screen and instead having to wait patiently for it to be dropped quietly out on DVD. I’m fed up with directors putting films out (like this one) that are so god-awful but no one seems to have the balls to stand up and blacklist the guy from ever getting behind a camera again. I’m fed up with art-house cinemas having to wait ages to get their hands on original content while mutliplexes screen Superhero Movie on 5 screens all at the same time. Most of all, I’m sick of movies like Michael Clayton, In The Valley of Elah, No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Gone Baby Gone and The Kingdom coming along and showing Hollywood how it should be done and what standard the majority of their content should be, only for Hollywood to mutter “M’eh, whatever!” before shrugging their shoulders and going back to green-lighting Dude, I Ate My Girlfriend’s Used Tampon 2: The Unrated Bloody Version.
Low and behold, another Batman movie and another Pixar movie come along with another movie made with a striking sense of originality and wit to blast me from my frustrated feelings regarding loving movies and all things movie related.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army may well be “another comic book movie” or “another sequel” or “another mainstream blockbuster” but it is also one of the most achingly beautiful and originally visioned movies you will see this year. If you’re the type of person who came out of Pan’s Labyrinth thinking “Well, it was okay, but what it really needed was a giant red demon with a fist made of rock pummelling the shit out of some monsters and shit!” then this, my friends, is the movie for you.
I expected this film to be good. Nay, I expected it to be great. However, it’s better then great. Just like The Dark Knight (my review of which can be found here!) it’s a film that works enormously outside of just being “another comic book movie” or “another sequel” or “another mainstream blockbuster”. It has something to say. It has points that it wants to make and leave you to discuss. It’s a film of real merit and one that will stand the test of time in a healthier state then its loveable previous movie.
Guillermo Del Toro has done what many a director-returning-to-a-sequel refuse to do: He has looked long and hard about what didn’t work for him, what failed to connect with the audience and what he had to exorcise and miss out on accomplishing through budgetary constraints first time round. After looking at such points, he’s set about working on correcting each and everyone of them, leaving Hellboy II to look the stronger, healthier, bigger, more confident and fully realised of the two movies. That’s not to say if you hated the first film you’re going to find an ’in’ with this movie. It’s just that this is the superior of the two movies for those who call themselves fans.
Every single character is rounded and fully formed. These are demons, creatures and mutants but - in terms of those within the BPRD and, rather uniquely, the villains of the piece - it actually becomes more and more difficult to consider them as such. Each and every one of them feel complete and almost like ’people’. Just like in The Dark Knight, this is all testament to the pitch-perfect script and genuinely tremendous performances on show. This is perfectly highlighted towards the end of the film when something happens to a major character and our hearts leap into our mouths. We’ve quickly realised how brave and unique a visionary Del Toro is and we’re starting to wonder to what extent he will go. Would he kill the ‘beat’ that drives the film? The very fact that I, and everyone I saw it with, considered it a possibility goes to show just how tightly Del Toro had us ensared in the palm of his hand!
Ron Perlman is as sublime as he was the first time round, possibly even better if that is actually possible. Selma Blair does a lot more with her role in this second movie and delivers her lines, in one particular scene regarding ‘choice’ and ‘fate’, in a manner that will break your heart. The supporting cast are also uniformly excellent too!
The set-pieces have been upped in both number and scale. The jokes, both broad and sly, have been increased in keeping and the whole movie is just an absolute joy from start to finish. I could talk for hours and hours about the motivation, empathy, points of discussion that spring from the character of Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) but this has already been covered far better and far more intelligently then I could in Kristina’s review. All I will say is that, come this movie’s end, I was - just like with The Dark Knight - positively aching to see where Del Toro takes the character of Hellboy and his ’friends’ next. The prospective wait we have on our hands is going to be a killer!
This film is beautiful, wonderous, inventive, original and a thorough, thorough joy (You may well doubt what I’m saying to you and label it hyperbole but my two word defence is simple: “Troll” and “Market”). Del Toro delivered one of the best sequels I’d seen in a long time when he gave us Blade II. He’s surpassed that film and then some with Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and in the process he has made a masterpiece!
This is blockbuster filmmaking by way of ‘art’. Truly gorgeous, painsakingly beautiful art!
- [Movie Review] HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
- Hellboy II: The Golden Army With Introduction By Del Toro
- New Trailer For HELLBOY II Online
- *UK EXCLUSIVE* [Movie Review] GET SMART
- New HELLBOY II Poster & Casting
10 Responses to “*UK EXCLUSIVE* [Movie Review] HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY”
Yeah, It’s pretty goddamn awesome.
And Prince Nuada and Magneto really need to exchange numbers and hang sometime.
Now thats what i call a review! This film I NEED to see!
The Gazz Howie Review Fan Club has acquired it’s first, and probably only, member!
I’d included Wesley Willis after his kind comments in my DARK KNIGHT review but I don’t think he wants to take his compliment that far, lol.
It’s a little early to be classed as a founder of the “Gazz Howie” fan club.
Hey, don’t go mindlessly trying to promote yourself lass, I said “member” not “founder” but with that level of arrogance on show consider your membership revoked, lol.
KRISTINA!!!!
I have a vacancy!
I was already in, babe.
Awwww
Hellboy is dependably fun; for sure that director has an amazing imagination, reminded me a lot of his work in Pan’s Labyrinth
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