Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, John Alexander Movie Review

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Ron Perlman in Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

Love and Other Complications

Life has become a little complicated in the world of Hellboy (Ron Perlman) especially as Liz (Selma Blair) has returned but appears to be playing hard to get. What she isn't telling Hellboy is the fact she is pregnant, something which Abe (Doug Jones) discovered whilst they were doing battle with some evil tooth fairies. It is those evil tooth fairies which alert Hellboy and the agency of something really big as an evil elf has had enough of the pact they have with the humans and all hell is breaking out on Earth because of him.

Why is it that when a movie delivers on everything you expect it to deliver on that you are some times left with an emptiness? This is what happened to me not only on the first time I watched "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" but also on subsequent viewings because whilst not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination each time I finish it I have a feeling that there needed to be something more, something I wasn't expecting.

Selma Blair in Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

As such what you get in "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is another treat for your eyes with stunning comic book imagery in every scene from a road erupting and launching cars in to the air to the creativity of the characters and their costumes. There is so much detail that you don't take it all in when you only watch the movie once but the thing is that I expected to be impressed by the level of visual detail and so whilst it doesn't disappoint it doesn't deliver anything which made me really go wow.

It is the same with the acting as Ron Perlman is once again brilliant as Hellboy as are the sarcastic replies and the looks which make the movie so entertaining. But do you know what, it is nothing other than what I had expected from Perlman and so it didn't blow me away. It is the same with all the other characters as they are all good, but I expected something more from the movie, that one character other than Hellboy who I would remember.

I suppose in a way the problem I have with "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is that the storyline which not only features Hellboy trying to deal with a bad elf but also the public as he is spotted and of course labelled a freak is not enough. Even the subplots which focus on romantic tribulations for both Hellboy and also Abe don't lift the movie to really grab your attention beyond the look.

What this all boils down to is that "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is an entertaining movie and probably a great movie if you are mainly after purely visual entertainment. But for me whilst delivering everything I had expected it left me longing for something more.


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