Hellboy II: The Golden Army

I have to give it five stars. I simply have to. Not that anyone's forcing me to, but “Hellboy" is my favorite comic, and here it all looks exactly like it does on the pages of the comic books (although it's also completely different at the same time). Mike Mignola couldn't have found a man with more imagination and sense of atmosphere than Guillermo del Toro. I hope we get a third film. (2009-04-26)

The magic about “Hellboy" for me was always in its short, punchy stories. In longer stories, his strength, atmosphere and links with myths and legends fades, like it or not. Then it has to be scotch-taped together with a quickly thought-up mythology that is as dull as it is shameful. Unfortunately, Del Toro took the this path the second time around too. You can see that he concentrated on every last detail of this, but in doing so he forgot about the main thing. Entertainment. Despite action and humor aplenty, it just doesn’t work, even with a ton of tongue in cheek humor. If it weren’t for the central trio and the Ireland trip at the end (you see legends work better in myth-rich parts of Europe than on neon-lit Manhattan), so despite its pleasant visual aspect and a few nice ideas here and there (singing over a beer), it falls apart like Sparta Football Club did at Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona. It’s good to watch, you certainly won’t get bored, but when the final credits came up I found it hard to remember what in fact happened. (2008-08-17)

One thing you really can't deny Guillermo del Toro is his utterly limitless imagination in the field of supernatural monsters and creatures, which makes his films uniquely fabulous and dark and terrifying at the same time. While it's true that at times Hellboy 2 slid down the slide due to its bland one-liners and moments, and that at times the dark action fantasy turned (almost literally) into a family drama, somehow the director still pulled it off in the end, and overall it turned out to be a pretty good and, more importantly, visually and imaginatively rich fantasy film. There were moments where I could feel the atmosphere from Pan's Labyrinth within reach, which is just as well. (2011-05-25)

For having a budget of eighty-five million, del Toro delivers an incredible piece of theatre, but the plot itself gets somewhat lost. Gone is the flamboyance of the first film, when the in-love "red man" was spouting dry catchphrases, and in the dark alleys he would fight other monsters from time to time. It does go into some of the depth of the mythology, but del Toro would have had to take an extra half hour to really get the whole colossus rolling and not just jump from place to place to blow it all away in two hours. Fortunately, it's still done with that passionate creative love for the comics and it's enjoyable all the way through. I give it a weaker four stars. PS: I believe that under Jackson's patronage, The Hobbit will be a smash hit. (2008-09-19)

Guillermo Del Toro did exactly what was expected of him. The film looks like it cost three times as much as it actually did, and the parade of entertaining action scenes, monsters and original ideas is almost never-ending. Unfortunately, the film loses its pace when it works with emotions. Nevertheless, Hellboy and his crew saving the world from an invincible army is definitely worth a cinema visit, because it's still a damn good film. (2008-08-12)