Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Another of those rare creatures: a sequel that is far better than the original. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed Hellboy but it was badly let down by it's finale and didn't make the best use of it's villains. This time, Guillermo Del Toro has imported the emotional heft of his Spanish language films into the mix and packed the screen with so many creatures and ingenious gadgets that only freeze framing on DVD will ever enable a person to see everything. The other good news is that Abe Sapien gets more screen time, not to mention a wistful romance with a fairy princess and a drunken singalong with Hellboy to Barry Manilow. Del Toro's imagination seems to know no bounds. The troll market, the tooth fairies, the Golden Army and the Elemental are all breathtaking (and in the case of the tooth fairies thoroughly vicious little beasties). In fact, the culmination of the scene with the Elemental produced the same heartclenching reaction as the snow sequence in Edward Scissorhands. It sums up the dilemma facing Hellboy and his colleagues. Do they belong with the (mostly ungrateful) humans or should they be on the side of the elves, fighting to keep their world alive? There are moments when you wish Hellboy would switch sides. In fact, the appearance of another of Del Toro's wonderful creations, the very unnerving Angel of Death, hints at a much darker fate for Hellboy. After the loss and self sacrifice at the end of this film, it wouldn't be surprising.