Hell Boy 2

Hell Boy meets Pan's Labyrinth would probably at first cause you to turn your head in puzzlement but actually has a strange sort of logic to it. Beyond the fact that both are directed by Guillermo del Toro, Hell Boy is a world in which a demon who was brought into the world fights paranormal evils and so in fact is a perfect location for the wondrous fantasy images of Pan's Labyrinth. Hell Boy had a fairly straight forward and generally enjoyable story. Hell Boy 2 seeks to expand this world into a full fledged underverse of trolls, elves and other mythical figures. This results in some truly amazing looking creatures such as the angel of death or a endangered tree spirit that make up important scenes in the film.

Hell Boy 2 finds the titular hero in romantic troubles with his gal Liz wishing that he could have media exposure and receive thanks for all the good he does the world. Meanwhile a disgruntled Elf prince tired of humans plans to reactivate an indestructible legion of warriors to wipe humanity out. Hell Boy and his team must stop him and the film spends much of its alloted time dealing with fighting, emotional melodrama and comedy.

Quite honestly, Hell Boy was a tighter film and seemingly not as concerned with its status as a franchise. Hell Boy 2 seems quite aware it is a sequel and frequently meanders away from the story for cute moments or humor for humor's sake side bars. This includes a mildly amusing but completely unnecessary karaoke version of a Barry Manilow song by two of the leads. There are in fact quite a few wink at the camera type jokes that really test the patience at times. There are of course plenty of rather shallow questions about humanity and destiny thrown in to make it seem more mythical and epic than it actually is.

And despite these criticisms I still mildly enjoyed the film. The action sequences were fun enough and the imagery of the fantasy world was quite well done. The menagerie of the troll market was visually wonderful. And further more despite my criticism of the shallow philosophy, the Angel of Death scene as kind of creepy and visually delightful. When you boil it down the film could have benefited from a bit more coherent and better story but I was glad I got to see the visions of del Toro applied to the super hero genre.