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From Latinreview, “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army picks up after the events of the first film – Hellboy and his fiery girlfriend Liz are trying to make a go of living together, but there’s a lot of tension. Aquatic Abe Sapien still lives in a water tank, but he has a new and updated breathing gear for when he’s walking around. And Agent Tom Manning, the liason for Hellboy and the team at the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development is still trying to deal with Hellboy’s antics, where he is more and more being noticed and photographed.
He shouldn’t bother, though. When a Manhattan auction house is attacked by a sword-wielding elf and a troll, the event serves as Hellboy’s coming out party. While battling a flesh eating mass of tooth fairies – they’re creepier than they sound! – Hellboy manages to take the fight to a crowd of reporters, where he and the BPRD are completely outed. Cue the opening credits!
Being public brings new problems to the team as they deal with autograph hounds, hate mail and an appearance on Jay Leno. Meanwhile, the elf from the auction house turns out to be the prince of all elves, and son of the leader of the fairy realm. They’ve lived in peace with humanity for millennia, but the prince has a different idea – he wants to reclaim the Earth. To do that he needs to get his hands on the Golden Army, ten thousand goblin-built robots hidden somewhere. To control them he needs three parts of a crown, but his twin sister, who is against his plan, has run off with one part. And Hellboy has a problem closer to home – his antics have made the government give BPRD a new leader in the form of Johann, a German made of ectoplasm who may or may not be putting the moves on Liz.
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is a huge movie. It’s much bigger than the first, including flashbacks to the Golden Army tearing through a human army, a troll market filled with dozens of strange monsters, a five story tall tree elemental battling Hellboy on the Brooklyn Bridge, Yokai spirits rampaging in Tokyo and a dragon attacking Moscow. And that’s just for starters!
It’s also action packed. The script barely lets up from battle to battle, each getting bigger with bigger stakes. But the script, by Guillermo del Toro, doesn’t sacrifice these vivid and fun characters for the sake of action. Abe gets more screentime this go round, and he has a very touching emotional story, and even Mysterio-looking Johann has an emotional journey. Of course at the center is Hellboy and Liz trying to hold their unlikely love together.
In a lot of ways Hellboy 2: The Golden Army reminds me of Ghostbusters 2 if that movie was done well. It’s a bigger, more ambitious story with characters who are already established. Hellboy 2 doesn’t spend a lot of time catching up with the characters. When Johann is introduced and Hellboy says he doesn’t like Germans, you have to know the first movie to know why. But it’s never a major point, and the stuff that needs to be explained is, so even new people can come to this movie.
When people first heard that Hellboy would be fighting fairies and elves and mythical creatures, some thought it sounded silly, but del Toro really goes back to the early versions of these fables and myths to create some tough and nasty beasties for Hellboy to punch. And he punches a lot of them. Fans will be happy to know that even when the BPRD gets product placement Hummers, Hellboy still prefers to solve his problems with his big rock fist.”
The first Hellboy was a modest hit that found a bigger audience on TV and DVD, but Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is bigger in every way. And it doesn’t look like the end of the story, either. By the end of Hellboy 2 there are big changes in Hellboy’s life that will make for a really interesting Hellboy 3. And when you finally do get to see the movie in 2008, stick around past the end credits. Del Toro drops in a little hint as to what we might see Hellboy taking on in Hellboy 3, and fans of the first film will be really excited!