HELLBOY is the working-class superhero, a redneck (red everything, in fact) whose main interests are TV, Baby Ruth bars and Tecate beer. If it weren’t for all the supernatural monsters that need slaying, he’d probably be just as happy to work at Jiffy Lube.
But in “Hellboy II,” the big red lug must contend with goblins, elf kings, trolls and Jeffrey Tambor. There’s an all-powerful plant god the size of a battleship – Podzilla? – that could cancel out the planet’s carbon emissions. There’s an oracle with 100 eyes on his wings, and a fussy fish-man who looks like the love child of C-3PO and Charlie the Tuna.
With the exception of Tambor, these creatures are done up in slithery style, with writhing tentacles and misshapen faces. If I were a kid, this movie’s images would light up my nightmares. To its credit, Guillermo del Toro’s more extravagant, $75 million follow-up to his 2004 B-movie doesn’t take any of this particularly seriously. It’s a monster movie in which the monsters listen to Barry Manilow. (Note to Hollywood: You could do a lot with this idea.)
Hellboy (Ron Perlman) emerged from the Earth’s inflamed bowels during a Nazi WWII mission to find supernatural stuff. He’s a wise- and skull-cracking red devil on a mission to stop an elf prince who looks like Legolas’ crazy uncle. His catchphrase needs a makeover, though; a desultory “Aw, crap!” seems the best he can come up with. The bad elf wants to put together the dispersed pieces of an ancient crown and in so doing summon the buried Golden Army of killbots from their cellar somewhere under Northern Ireland, which is as good a place as any to resume ancient feuds. The elf prince argues that his race deserves to take over the Earth because the humans have wasted their chance – “Parking lots! Shopping malls!” he cries.
Aw, crap! It’s bad enough this guy wants to summon a supernatural army that will make him the new master of the human race. Does he also have to guilt-trip me out of driving to Target this weekend? I really need that pack of gum. (Hellboy’s creator Mike Mignola, who shares a story credit on the film, has said there is an allegory about the American Indians here, but going to this movie for the politics is like going to Hooters for the créme brulee.)
Hellboy and his girlfriend, Liz (Selma Blair), who has a habit of bursting into flame, go after the prince. They’re joined by their colleague from Team Paranomal, the Vivaldi-loving fishman Abe Sapien, and a new character, a punctilious German (aren’t they all?) who is a waft of vapor bottled up in a diving suit. The German, Krauss, is given a vaudeville comic voice by a cheerful Seth MacFarlane, the “Family Guy” creator. It’s possible that signing a $100 million contract will lighten your mood, but whatever the cause of the fun, it’s catching. When Krauss and Hellboy argue with each other it’s like Dr. Strangelove and Buck Turgidson lost on a camping trip together. On to the fights. There are many of them, frequently dusted with comedy, and they keep things ripping along. The elf prince, with much flit-twit-twitting of swords and spears that he spins like a baton twirler, rips through an elf honor guard. The gang of good guys faces some ill-tempered “tooth fairies” the size of Chihuahuas who, instead of leaving a dollar under your pillow, eat your flesh like flying piranhas.
Despite all of the hideous critters Hellboy encounters, though, there is a hint that things are considerably weirder elsewhere. When one beast can’t be found at the troll market, someone suggests looking for it in some far scarier place: “Over in Jersey, maybe.”
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
Monster mash.
Running time: 110 minutes. Rated PG-13 (profanity, violence). At the E-Walk, the Union Square, others.