Hellboy II - The Golden Army
Hellboy II – the Golden Army promised to be, by all accounts, better than the first. Certainly the preview sequences had shown some lovely mythical magic-ness and it seemed that even many reviewers were giving crooning sounds of joy.
So why am I disappointed?
First of all I’m not a fan of Ron Perlman. I think he’s a less than outstanding actor who only got the Hellboy role because he’s big and ugly – just like Hellboy. Still he executed it reasonably well in the first film. I wasn’t going to let my dislike of Perlman though stop me from enjoying the film.
It’s other things…
The story is pretty standard but that also shouldn’t stop the enjoyment if it’s well executed - and that’s the crux of the disappointment. It is not well executed.
The script is pretty awful. It may have been the aim to joke it up but there’s no flair to it and mostly ends up being cringe-worthy. All of the punch lines feel forced or manufactured. Perlman himself delivers standard unfunny and predictable quips. The scene with his controller begging him to be discrete just seems like filler, for example, there’s no life or interaction. The only comedy in such sequences is that the pair are almost like Stooge or Laurel’n’Hardy.
There’s no chemistry between Big Red (Ron Perlman) and Liz (Salma Blair) even though there’s a major plot device with the Ms Blair being pregnant. In fact, it seemed that Blair was just not interested – her delivery was sub-par. In the first film she was much more brooding and dangerous, were-as in this one she seems hormonal (I guess understandable given her condition) or swinging to be an unconvincing GI-Jane type character, a role in which she sounds flat and wooden. To top her character’s performance off even her fire effects were much sexier in the first film! They made the fire more natural looking with warm hues rather than the cold ethereal blues tinge of the previous.
Some sequences are just well, boring and nonsense, such as the early tooth faerie scene. The modus-operandi of the dental-pixie is explained before suddenly they swarm out of the walls. The intrepid crew then stands and fights, shooting off handguns at a swarming mass of faeries. What’s the use in that? 9mm rounds vs a thousand creatures isn’t going to work no matter how good the shot is. Of course a number of Agent Expendables expire as we are treated to Blair and others getting their daily trigger practice. All pretty pointless really.
Another example is the elemental forest god that’s thrown at our hero. It’s just countered way too easily. A couple of shots with Red’s hand-cannon and it’s down and out. Oh that’s it then.
The biggest downfall though is the chronic under use of the main bad-guy – Prince Nuada. The elfin Prince is played by ex-boy-band-member Luke Goss (ex of Bros). His main remit seems to be to wander around in the occasional scene going “I’m bad and going to kick your human butts into never-never-land”. Goss though actually does sound menacing and has a sinister level accent in which he delivers his lines and it’s a crime that the potential wasn’t further exploited. In fact his performance promises that he actually has ability (more than when he was boy-banding) and I reckon there’s a most excellent James Bond villain in his future.
Of course the creature effects themselves are stunning and rich. The Angel of Death is fantastic. The elves, from their costumes to the ogham writing that is etched on their skin are a treat but they don’t save the film from being just ordinary.
Unfortunately Hellboy II delivers just a standard morass of fantasy fayre that’s not a patch on the original.
