Hellboy 2 sits prettily into a pantheon that includes Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. Like those films, it suggests that its esteemed creator is cinema’s answer to H.P Lovecraft, a man who sees monsters and magic where the rest of us see nothing at all. There is simply no other director with that sort of command over our capacity to disbelieve.
Hellboy, a star player for the Dark Horse Comics imprint, is spirited entirely into the del Toro universe for this second film. Fans will smile knowingly to themselves seeing clockwork, mythical creatures and other manifestations of the Mexican’s most cherished preoccupations. Our hero, an incredibly powerful demon who works for the government Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, fits just fine into this world.
In The Golden Army, this most arch superhero must prevent the militant elf prince Nuada (Luke Goss, yes, the one from Bros.) from resurrecting an ancient mechanical army and wiping humanity off the face of the earth. Hellboy (Ron Perlman) is joined in his quest by aquatic telepath Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), elf princess Nuala (Anna Walton), a German psychic who exists only as ectoplasm in a suit (Seth MacFarlane reprising American Dad’s Klaus) and long time love Liz Sherman (Selma Blair).
Long before the crew wind up in the north of Ireland of all places, Hellboy 2 has established its credentials as the most outlandish, innovative entertainment of the summer. There are vampire tooth fairies and talking tumours. There’s a goblin market under Brooklyn Bridge and a monster sing-along to Barry Manilow’s ‘I Can’t Smile Without You’. The Dark Knight may be sleeker but for fantasy, humour and smarts neither it nor Iron Man comes close to del Toro’s picture. Every line – “Don’t call me Babe”, “Suck my ectoplasmic Schwanzstücke!”– is an instant catchphrase. Every spectacle is dazzlingly original.
Like its predecessor the killer hook here is the tempestuous romance between Hellboy and Liz. If the last film was the quintessential teenage-freaks-in-love experience, this movie is all about the yips, those pesky small details that trouble young moved-in couples. Monsters or not, the devilish magnetism between Ron Perlman and Selma Blair, two superb performers who really ought to be in far more movies, makes the central affair in Casablanca look like casual indifference.
And just wait until you see what’s really under the Giant’s Causeway…