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Did you guys catch The Office last night?
Comic book movies, even the lesser-known ones, typically follow a formula for the story. The first installment was typically an origin tale, weaving a tale to behold by fans old and new and even the previously uninitiated: answering important questions such as How They Got Their Powers, Why They Wear That Costume (if applicable) and most of all, How They Got That Name (often an updated for the times, tongue-in-cheek version.)
We get to know the world the story is set in and the strengths and limitations of our heroes, villains and supporting cast, as well as establish the attitudes and/or quirks each player is written with. In a way, we get to know someone; slowly understanding what makes them tick and where they're coming from, and how they'd likely handle situations they're presented with.
When it comes time for the sequel, the trend usually takes the established character motivations, strengths and weaknesses and builds upon it, providing some growth during the fancy-new-slightly-bigger-budgeted adventure - and I'm certain you all were thinking of a handful off the top of your head as you read that. This is especially true when the same director and especially the same writers are involved. I mean, who knows the established character development better when sitting down to flesh out the continuation of the story they themselves designed?
This is not the case with Hellboy 2.
The first Hellboy, as mentioned earlier, plays the part of an origin story, the "origin" part being covered in a brief flashback to the day Hellboy himself was pulled into our world by Nazi occultists as part of a sort-of Hail-Mary pass to turn the tide of World War II. From then on we're introduced to this idea of a secret alternate history and some kick-ass steampunk technology while the adult Hellboy and a secret branch of the government tracks, hunts, imprisons and protects artifacts from mythology and religion, and it was awesome, and I loved it.
The sequel came out four years later. Now, in my book, that means it can follow two (and only two) paths when it's the same writer/director: during the pre-production process they understand they have some freedom to dedicate two hours to a story as opposed to dividing origin time amongst the duration and take careful provisions to ensure a story that builds upon and surpasses the original.
The other path being a head-shakingly winding road of Trying Too Hard. It seems to almost copy the original's formula, amp up the action, change the orchestral score with a more pop music, "inspired by the motion picture" infused soundtrack and force in a bunch of quips and subtle references to the last outing. That sort of thing happens when a movie comes out not necessarily expecting a sequel but profits caused the studio to demand one. Needless to say the end result is usually an incredible disappointment. And guess what? That's finally the segue I needed to talk about Hellboy 2.
It's not often I see a follow-up story play out like a poorly planned fan-fiction. It may or may not be the curse of the sequel fueling my dissatisfaction, the curse of what's presented having to, by necessity, be compared directly to its predecessor.
The trouble I had with it is the raw ignorance of the established character traits of the main cast. Hellboy is introduced in the first installment stomping around as a big gruff badass with a hidden teenager-like uncertainty due to being generally unexposed to social interaction. Sort-of your typical action hero, only instead of a grimacing Bruce Willis he's a big red gorilla with horns. He seems to understand the need to keep himself and his work secret even if he gets spotted and blurry photographs are taken. He's juvenile but smart.
The second starts out with Hellboy literally going out of his way to be public knowledge.
His partner Abraham Sapien brushes it off as him "just wanting the people to appreciate what they do," even though seconds after they're exposed the same partner is slack-jawed and unimpressed with his actions. There's a scene half-way through in which Hellboy runs around the face of a building carrying a rescued baby while fighting a giant plant monster and feels shock when he returns it to its mother and she's not falling to her knees in thanks and the police and eyewitnesses circle around shouting obscenities and throwing rocks. I kid you not, he has a sad look in his eyes and woefully utters, full of surprise, "They're afraid of me ... " and gets all mopey. There are no less than three scenes in the first Hellboy in which our hero is seen by the public and he even interacts directly with a human boy for a little while on a rooftop. While they may seem surprised by him, he doesn't seem to care. Heck, Hellboy knows the average person is going to be taken aback by his devilish appearance because we've see it happen!
Anyway, there's another world-ending crisis in the works as a centuries-old Elf Prince declares war on mankind, but that all takes a back-seat to Hellboy's relationship problems! His girlfriend is all super-pregnant but just ... can't ... muster ... the courage ... to ... tell him ... just ... yet ... though that won't stop her from endlessly stating she has "something to tell him" at inappropriate times and changing the subject almost immediately, like some annoying girlfriend with the mental status of a sixteen-year-old.
To put it in perspective, remember the last third of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, when Gwyneth Paltrow keeps raising her camera to snap a picture, pauses and reminds herself and the audience aloud she only has one frame left on the film? Remember how the audience consensus was something along the lines of, "That was really fucking annoying"? Triple that ... triple that hard.
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There's probably a Beauty and the Beast joke in there somewhere.
Poor Liz (the girlfriend) seems to forget everything about herself, too, ending our last adventure as an introverted pyrokinetic who has laid the tracks to grow into herself and suddenly shifting gears here to mood swing-y, sarcastic action girl who just gets girlfriend-mad at Hellboy most of the first half. In contrast Abe was lucky to suffer the lesser effects of the amnesia ray with the only loss to his character being forgetting how to sound like David Hyde Pierce and acting a little too naïve towards heavily announced plot twists for a guy who reads four books a day, every day.
The evil Elf-Prince interacts with various characters from Pan's Labyrinth on his quest to control the titular Golden Army while Hellboy and his buddies steampunk their way into Diagon Alley (sorry, I mean the Troll Market) and Abe Sapien harbours a crush on the Elf-Princess, who is symbiotically linked with her twin brother, one of those "you bleed I bleed, I die you die" situations and GOLLY I WONDER HOW THIS IS GOING TO PLAY OUT.
The climax moves about as predictably as one might predict with all this on display and it's hard to dismiss the battle against the Golden Army itself as anything but "cool, albeit brief" but after ninety minutes of waiting to get to this point I just can't forget how much time went by trying to make this look like an adaptation of the child-aimed cartoon it never was. I remember seeing an occult nightmare about to descend and Armageddon mere minutes from ravaging the planet. When did Hellboy move into Middle Earth?
Obviously I've never read a Hellboy comic book, nor done more than glance at the pages of one. I'm not meaning to debate accuracy to the comics but strictly compare the movie The Golden Army to the movie Hellboy. That's all I have to go on, and that's all that was presented aside from two animated films and I don't yet know if they have anything to do with the movie universe.
Had this been the first movie I'd probably be more lenient. Heck, I'd probably have liked it a whole lot. But sadly The Golden Army falls under the curse of the rushed sequel. A rushed sequel that took four years to make.
If you enjoyed this review, feel encouraged to visit Not The Demographic [http://notthedemographic.blogspot.com] and make yourself at home. Just don't expect breakfast.
