HELLBOY 2: Review
HELLBOY 2: Review By Pete Higgins “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is the sequel to the affectionately-remembered, but largely underwhelming, “Hellboy”. Since “Hellboy”, of course, its director, Guillermo Del Toro has set the world on fire with “Pan’s Labyrinth”: the kind of film everyone knows about, even if they haven’t seen it. For me, the problem with all Del Toro’s films is that they sound better than they actually are. I really want to like “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Cronos” and “Blade II” but in the end, while I’m impressed by them, I can’t find anything in them that renders them more than just visually innovative and mildly diverting. As for “Pan’s Labyrinth”, well, it showed a potentially interesting future for Del Toro – fantasy films for grown-ups. Imagine my disappointment, then, when his next film is not an advance on his last one, but a huge step backwards. Displaying all the visual invention of “PL” but none of the class, “Hellboy II” is desperately unamusing, drearily “light-hearted” and instantly forgettable. Ron Perlman is back as the eponymous hero, he of the red skin and sanded-down horns and cigar-chomping, Eastwood-lite under-acting. His girlfriend bursts into flames when she’s angry. His pal is a blue-skinned fish-thing who likes Barry Manilow. The bad guy is played by Luke “Bros” Goss. Various things happen. Various CGI baddies cause trouble for a while, and then get beaten by the good guys. But tell me, why is all of it so wearily, tiredly, exhaustingly well made? Why are the special effects so unsurprisingly brilliant? Why are the monsters (“Pan’s Lab” rejects, every one of them) so blandly impressive? Why does none of it seem to matter to anyone? And, if Hellboy can shoot the big green plant-monster, why not just give the gun to a cop and let him/her shoot the big green plant-monster? Why does Hellboy have to do it, while hanging off the side of a hotel, three stories up, holding a baby? Is the only answer, “Because it’s cooler this way”? Yes. When every character is a freak or a robot or a puff of smoke or a legless Irish guy in a cart or a winged, eyeless angel/devil with nothing to do but explain the “plot” or get in the way for a while, when nothing matters, when ultra-violence results in nothing more than a flattened car and a fat lip, when one digital robot is fighting another digital robot, forever, then none of this expensive slick cartoon actually needs to exist, and we can all just go back to sleep and wait for an adult to make a film for adults, rather than this patronising hollow farce on which millions and millions of dollars have been spent, to no sensible purpose whatsoever. The depressing but not that surprising message of “Hellboy II: The Golden Army”, along with most of this year’s other “blockbusters”, for that matter, is that today’s ultra-talented film-makers can show us anything, but they haven’t got anything to show us.
HELLBOY 2: Review By Pete Higgins “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is the sequel to the affectionately-remembered, but largely underwhelming, “Hellboy”. Since “Hellboy”, of course, its director, Guillermo Del Toro has set the world on fire with “Pan’s Labyrinth”: the kind of film everyone knows about, even if they haven’t seen it. For me, the problem with all Del Toro’s films is that they sound better than they actually are. I really want to like “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Cronos” and “Blade II” but in the end, while I’m impressed by them, I can’t find anything in them that renders them more than just visually innovative and mildly diverting. As for “Pan’s Labyrinth”, well, it showed a potentially interesting future for Del Toro – fantasy films for grown-ups. Imagine my disappointment, then, when his next film is not an advance on his last one, but a huge step backwards. Displaying all the visual invention of “PL” but none of the class, “Hellboy II” is desperately unamusing, drearily “light-hearted” and instantly forgettable. Ron Perlman is back as the eponymous hero, he of the red skin and sanded-down horns and cigar-chomping, Eastwood-lite under-acting. His girlfriend bursts into flames when she’s angry. His pal is a blue-skinned fish-thing who likes Barry Manilow. The bad guy is played by Luke “Bros” Goss. Various things happen. Various CGI baddies cause trouble for a while, and then get beaten by the good guys. But tell me, why is all of it so wearily, tiredly, exhaustingly well made? Why are the special effects so unsurprisingly brilliant? Why are the monsters (“Pan’s Lab” rejects, every one of them) so blandly impressive? Why does none of it seem to matter to anyone? And, if Hellboy can shoot the big green plant-monster, why not just give the gun to a cop and let him/her shoot the big green plant-monster? Why does Hellboy have to do it, while hanging off the side of a hotel, three stories up, holding a baby? Is the only answer, “Because it’s cooler this way”? Yes. When every character is a freak or a robot or a puff of smoke or a legless Irish guy in a cart or a winged, eyeless angel/devil with nothing to do but explain the “plot” or get in the way for a while, when nothing matters, when ultra-violence results in nothing more than a flattened car and a fat lip, when one digital robot is fighting another digital robot, forever, then none of this expensive slick cartoon actually needs to exist, and we can all just go back to sleep and wait for an adult to make a film for adults, rather than this patronising hollow farce on which millions and millions of dollars have been spent, to no sensible purpose whatsoever. The depressing but not that surprising message of “Hellboy II: The Golden Army”, along with most of this year’s other “blockbusters”, for that matter, is that today’s ultra-talented film-makers can show us anything, but they haven’t got anything to show us.