Hellboy II-Golden Army (Blu-ray) (2008)

"The endlessly inventive del Toro creates visual fantasies unlike any other, and the creatures on display here are truly extraordinary.  Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News
"As much Tolkien's baby as Mignola's, this has more heart and humour than most fantasy films can dream of.  Helen O'Hara, Empire
"Hugely inventive -- and smashingly beautiful.  Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
"...[del Toro] has the wildest imagination and grandest ambitions of anybody in modern movies.  Richard Corliss, Time
"Poetic, funny, darkly romantic and beautifully structured...  Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

Editor's Note HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY begs any number of referential mash-ups to be used as description of its outlandish tonal and stylistic qualities. It's a little like a romantic and sophisticated live-action Ninja Turtles movie imbued with a cracked version of H.P. Lovecraft's monster storytelling. It's a feature-length version of STAR WARS's Mos Eisley Cantina mixed with a scrappy, proficient passion for creature design reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen. It's also kind of director/co-writer Guillermo del Toro's HELLBOY (2004) wrapped in a blanket of his PAN'S LABYRINTH. This sequel is all these things, but none of them can accurately capture the singularity of a movie which, in some ways, stands alone in its ability to capture the crass and literary luridness of reading a comic book. It's filled with gross creatures bursting with humanity, dark poetry, and slapstick comedy; in one scene, an argument between Hellboy and Johann Krauss, a formless gas contained in a mobilized suit, escalates to the point of Tom-&-Jerry-like violence. As Hellboy himself, a heartfelt anti-hero who regularly eliminates supernatural threat as an agent for the U.S. Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense alongside girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair) and comrade Abe Sapien, Ron Perlman again embodies the role with the kind of pathos and humor that one can only expect from a horned, red-skinned Hell-spawn who loves kittens and acts like a hardboiled detective who happens to watch TV and drink a lot of canned beer. HELLBOY II's rather interesting antagonist, Prince Nuada, isn't just an evil dude. In the mold of the complex villains typically found in Hayao Miyazaki's animated fairy tales, his intentions of restoring control over Earth to an Elvish race by regaining the key to unlock the indestructible Golden Army are at least based on a legitimately noble sentiment before megalomania kicks in.

	Luke Goss
	Selma Blair
	Doug Jones
	John Alexander
	Ron Perlman
	Guillermo Navarro - Director of Photography
	Mike Richardson - Producer
	Mike Mignola - Source Writer
	Guillermo Del Toro - Story
	Stephen Scott - Production Designer
	Lloyd Levin - Producer
	Lawrence Gordon - Producer
	Chris Symes - Executive Producer
	Danny Elfman - Composer
	Mike Mignola - Story
	Guillermo Del Toro - Screenwriter
	Guillermo Del Toro - Director

USA Today
"[HELLBOY II] delivers plenty of inventive thrills....The action is well-paced, the production design striking and the creatures and special effects spectacular. Del Toro is an extraordinary visual stylist..." 07/11/2008

Los Angeles Times
"[A]live with fantasy and invention. To see this film, beautifully shot by Guillermo Navarro, is to truly feel you've entered another world, filled with nightmarish things both unimaginable and indescribable." 07/11/2008

New York Times
"The story of HELLBOY 2 is a happy hodgepodge of bantering humor and portentous metaphysics, packing a remarkable range of moods and genre elements into a fairly compact 110 minutes." 07/11/2008

Entertainment Weekly
"[A] hard-driving psychedelic action-movie fantasia....del Toro stages all of the action brilliantly....Dazzling..." -- Grade: B 07/18/2008 p.42-43

Sight and Sound
"[A] breeze to watch...constantly inventive in its monsters and always ironic..." 09/01/2008 p.62-63

Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "There is plenty of action....Del Toro's fondness for the macabre, and for clockwork, colour this film in a way that's instantly recognisable." 09/01/2008 p.54

Premiere
"[The film] arrives with stunningly beautiful set pieces, alien creatures that would make George Lucas catch his breath, and a color palette so bright and wondrous as to take your breath away." 07/07/2008

Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]here's more poetry and subtext than is typical for a comic-book movie, with themes of fertility, maturity and mortality laced throughout the slam-bang action set-pieces." 11/01/2008 p.140

ReelViews 8 of 10
The temptation is to remark that if Hellboy was the appetizer, then Hellboy II: The Golden Army is the main course. To an extent, that's true. The second film is more assured, better paced, and has a stronger emotional component. It takes chances, offers action, pathos and humor, provides a Barry Manilow singalong, and keeps the focus where it should be: on Hellboy. For all that it does well, however, Hellboy II stumbles at the end with two logic-defying plot holes that are so obvious it's inconceivable no one caught them or provided explanations. (Maybe there's some crucial information on the cutting room.) These flaws, minor as they might seem, damage the story and degrade the overall experience. Exhilaration gives way to a modicum of frustration...Hellboy II's story is more of a fantasy adventure than it is a straightforward superhero yarn. Visually and creatively, it is as much a close cousin to writer/director Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth as it is to its cinematic predecessor...From a plotting perspective, the film makes two large missteps during its denouement. Polished screenplays shouldn't have such readily identifiable flaws, which makes me wonder whether something important was deleted from the finished cut...It's hard to ignore such issues; they damage the integrity of the ending and that, in turn, makes the movie less special. Hellboy II is solid entertainment, but it's a shame such blemishes prevent it from achieving a higher level. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
Imagine the forges of hell crossed with the extraterrestrial saloon on Tatooine, and you have a notion of Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army." In every way the equal of his original "Hellboy" (2004), although perhaps a little noisier, it's another celebration of his love for bizarre fantasy and diabolical machines...There are also titanic battles in the streets of Manhattan involving gigantic octo-creatures and so on, but you know what? Although they're well done, titanic battles in the streets of Manhattan are becoming commonplace in the movies these days. What fascinates me is what the octo-creature transformed itself into, which was unexpected and really lovely. You'll see...The towering creatures fascinated me less, however, than some smaller ones...What else? Two love stories, which I'll leave for you to find out about. And the duet performance of a song that is rather unexpected, to say the least. And once again a strong performance by Ron Perlman as Hellboy. Yes, he's CGI for the most part, but his face and voice and movements inhabit the screen figure, and make him one of the great comic heroes. Del Toro, who preceded "Hellboy II" with "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006) and the underrated "Blade II" (2002), is warming up now for "Doctor Strange" and "The Hobbit." He has an endlessly inventive imagination, and understands how legends work, why they entertain us and that they sometimes stand for something. For love, for example. - Roger Ebert