Guillermo del Toro follows his brilliant blend of fantasy and historical drama, Pan’s Labyrinth, with a sequel to his 2004 comic adaptation. The titular hero (Ron Perlman) returns with the amusing world-weariness that, aside from his grotesque appearance, is his most notable feature. Yeah, he’s really strong, but that’s typcial superhero stuff, and so’s the basic plot, which has to do with an underworld prince (Luke Goss) threatening to unloose a bunch of dormant mechanical men to realize his dream of ethnic cleansing, the cleansees in question being the entire human race, starting with New York City.
More than the storyline, or the okay subplot in which Hellboy and his firey girlfriend (Selma Blair) try to resolve their combustible relationship, the appeal is in the variety of odd creatures. They can be found at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, whose team is led by a German-accented dude with a fishbowl for a head and features fish-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones). But even more can be found among their foes, who include tiny, man-eating tooth fairies and giant, killer vegetation. Fantasy fans and comic geeks will eat this up, but it won’t win over anyone who doesn’t care about that stuff.
IMDB link
viewed 7/12/08 at Moorestown; reviewed 7/25/08
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