Review of Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) by G.d. — 25 Jul 2008

Yeah, it was great to finally have Mike Mignola get the screen credit(s) he deserved, and as always, Guillermo Del Toro provides the most breathtaking visual effects (tho original response to the first 30 seconds of peeking at them in the trailer elicited a "hey, this looks like Pan's Labryinth" response from me).

..it was waaaayyyy too predictable for anyone who's been paying attention (my sister's boyfriend treated us to opening day tix, tho he never saw the first "Hellboy", didn't seem to miss a thing), and when they introduce the German um, agent, his accent struck me as eerily similar to that of that weird goldfish in that asinine "American Dad" cartoon - lo and behold he was listed in the credits as voiced by flippin' Seth MacFarlane! Let's see, for some reason the Prince kept making me think of Tom Cruise (then when I found out it was Luke Goss, 1/2 of the 80's duo BROS, well.

..); the Princess was very Calista Flockhart with a movie accent; still am not convinced that Selma Blair was the best choice for Liz Sherman; they wasted the Genius of Jeffrey Tambor with a pretty much disposable part; don't even get me started on the Hellboy "kid" with his weak voice (the story goes as the discovered youngin', his vocal chords had to adapt from a growl, so his voice was much deeper in his youth!); and speaking of voices I know the credits claim Doug Jones is Abe Sapien in both films, but his voice sounds so much different in this one!.

..truly, there was loads of style in the sequel, but it lacked the more satisfying substance of the original movie. Already long story short, the final word is the "Golden Army" was released by the behemoth Universal, whilst the first "Hellboy" was a Revolution Studios (read: "independent") film.