Hell, Boy!

Benicio Del Toro is an extremely talented filmmaker (and a pretty damn good writer too -- the script for PAN'S LABYRINTH was near-brilliant). I like that you can tell one of his films -- whether it's a more personal effort like PAN'S or a big film like BLADE II -- instantly. And he has a gift for making flawed characters, whether they're a young girl with an overactive imagination, a dicky vampire hunter, or a big red demon, sympathetic.

I quite liked HELLBOY. I'd read the comics and enjoyed the first movie. Del Toro did a great job capturing Mignola's difficult tone -- pulp fiction by way of Lovecraft with a dash of humor.

So I'd been looking forward to HELLBOY II, particularly after the kick-ass trailer showing sword-wielding elves and a giant ogre with a metal hand.

SPOILERS UP IN THIS BITCH!

The film delivers on the story and visuals. Hellboy has to stop an evil elf from unleashing an unstoppable mechanical army, all while fighting with his beloved, plus Abe Sapien falls for the elf's twin sister. And there are plenty of interesting action setpieces involving tiny carnivorous faeries, monster fights, and a battle with elf-robots.

Here's where the film goes off the rails a bit.

1) Hellboy's arc. Hellboy and Liz are fighting because he's a slob and doesn't listen to her. Hellboy also wants to "come out" into the public eye. So what does his story become? He outs himself, gets a little famous, people don't like him that much because he's a freak, Liz doesn't like his need to be loved by everyone, the evil elf tells him he should join the elves/freaks, and then he realizes he loves Liz. This is all a giant mess.

If Hellboy's going to be in the public eye, go with it. He becomes famous. He becomes a famewhore and a bit of a dick. That throws his team into jeopardy and eventually he realizes he loves Liz and gives up the public eye for her. In the film, it's a bit of a mish-mosh -- a lot of little bits of things that don't all go together. He never has to make a choice between the public and Liz, and that's unsatisfying the way his character need is established.

2) Hellboy being stabbed with a magic sword/spear/whatever. Hellboy is wounded. He's going to die unless the magical spearhead is taken out. So his team trundles him up to Ireland to go looking for faeries. They can't find a way into the faerie realm. And they happen to bump into a mysterious figure (the Dwarven Metalsmith/whatever) who not only can let them into faerieland, but also knows a guy who can take out the arrowhead. This is doubly convenient for our heroes.

Del Toro tries to gloss over this lazy writing by having the guy who can remove the arrowhead be Death (with a capital "D"). And Death warns Liz that if she saves Hellboy, he'll destroy the world. But that's a false choice. We know she loves him and is going to save him (both because of her nature and because the movie breaks if she says "No, let him die.").

3) Abe's romance. It's nice to see Abe bonding with the elf princess. And we get why they like each other -- they're almost the same person, intuitive palm-reading included. But that's about all we get for their relationship. And once it's established that elf-chick and elf-dude share a sympathetic nervous system, it's pretty clear she's going to have to die so that he can go down too. This was a missed opportunity.

4) The Evil Elf. What's his motivation? This is delivered almost entirely in dialogue/exposition, and it feels a little weak. He hates the humans for trashing the world and forgetting the old gods. Well, show us that -- show us faeries living in ruin, show us more than one shot of E.E. twirling his sword in the subway. SHOW US why he feels this way, then we don't need him to say it. And we'll understand why he kills his own father (and about forty other dudes) in order to wreak havoc on the humans.

So the movie's a lot of fun, and it looks really cool. You get to see a demon fight an ogre and elves and elf-robots. And that's worth the price of admission.

But all the emotion falls a litle flat -- both for Hellboy and Abe (the real emotional center of the movie). And the entire Third Act feels like a bit of a cheat, due to the heroes doing nothing other than bumping into someone who can get them into faerietown and save Hellboy's life.