Freak show
The year 2008 has been a winning streak for superhero movies, with movies like Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight hitting an above-average quality even at their worst, and I’m happy to report that the same applies for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. While The Dark Knight aimed for bleaker, more philosophical themes, Hellboy 2 ironically blazed its path in the opposite direction despite its namesake. It tried to invoke The X-men’s theme of being freakish outcasts in a prejudicial society, but there’s no hiding the movie’s humourous, fun and positive treatment of all things monstrous.
Not much can be said about Hellboy 2’s rote plotline. A disgruntled elf prince from an ancient race seeks to revive The Golden Army of seventy-seven steampunk versions of the Terminator and continue their unfinished task – to destroy the world of Men. Like every other inept villain, the prince had to make a huge scene out of his endeavour and garnered the attention of the entire world, including one supernaturally-empowered superhero. No prizes for guessing who defeats who in the end, but sadly the path towards that conclusion was fairly straightforward and bore no surprises or innovations.
Regardless, Hellboy 2 still appeals primarily because of its characters. With most of the human characters from the first movie out of the way, the movie now spends more screen time with the “freaks”, especially with Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) who only played a perfunctory role in the first movie. Probably realising that no one found the “normals” particularly interesting, the filmmakers added a whole street market full of creatures (like an expanded universe of the Mos Eisley cantina) for good measure. Like every other Guillermo del Toro movie, the freaks get more love than the humans.
I always felt that Del Toro was a director who is good at concepts but weak at cinematic direction. The pacing and camera movements in his movies often do not flow smoothly, even with better movies like Blade 2, which feels like a patchwork of sequences after you’ve gotten over the thrill of its great action set pieces. This is not a problem with more intimate, low-budget fares, but when you do a big-budget movie, mainstream audiences demand a Spielberg-like cinematic approach to hold their attention. I'm glad to announce that Del Toro has finally upped his game on Hellboy 2 with showy Goodfellas-style long takes, a more active camera, a better sense of pace, and action sequences that are closer to Blade 2's standards (yes, there are good martial arts fights here) than the mostly ho-hum ones in the first Hellboy.
But Spielberg Del Toro is still not. Despite his efforts, you could feel that he's not really there yet. Among his peers (the informally christened The Three Amigos trio of upcoming Latino directors that include del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu), Alfonso Cuaron is the one with the best hand in creating something cinematic (see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Children of Men). You can say that Del Toro is like the Lucas to Cuaron's Spielberg, but to be fair I think Del Toro is way more sensible and receptive a director than Lucas could ever be (or become again).
Overall, I think del Toro has improved his technique, and created a movie that's one of the funniest and fun-nest of the year. It’s also a good preview to del Toro’s next flick, The Hobbit. (Heck, del Toro even blatantly included trolls and elves speaking in elvish language in Hellboy 2's rogues gallery!) - BMF
Directed by Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) and written by del Toro and Mike Mignola. Stars Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, Jeffrey Tambor and John Hurt. Based on the comic book created by Mike Mignola.
Also, check out my minute review on the Golden Village site! |
