HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
Five of Seven Cows
Poor Hellboy, the big lug, just wants to be loved. Is that so wrong? Married to a woman that literally bursts into flames when agitated – and Hellboy, I assume, breaks more than his share of china – domestic bliss must be rare indeed for Hellboy. Things at the office are hardly satisfying, either. He saves the world almost daily, slaying dragons in the literal sense, and does he get any recognition? Nope – he gets yelled at instead. Who can blame him if he has a few dozen beers with his fishy friends now and then?
If Hellboy II is not the greatest movie about the male mid-life slump ever made, then I don’t know what it is. Stick him in a mini-van and half the men in suburbia, most of whom entered adulthood thinking they were superheroes of some variety, will be nodding in recognition. Forget the kids, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a movie aimed right at the heart of every forty-something soccer-dad out there.
Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe it is just a movie about a likable klutz of a superhero. Entertaining and fun, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is nearly the perfect summertime escapist movie. It’s not brilliant. It’s not meaningful. It’s not profound. It’s just dumb fun, with striking visuals and enough of a plot to allow all the right critters to get killed with gleeful abandon.
Ron Perlman, a classically-trained actor, brings just the right amount of childish bravado to the part of Hellboy. Killing not only without remorse, but with humor, the Hellboy series harkens back to a pre-politically correct era when the good guys didn’t meditate on the supposed horror of it all. Hellboy kills, smirks, then kills again, doing his job so well that he’s confused as to how he can be so unappreciated. Again, what middle-aged man can’t relate to that?
Perlman is joined by an excellent cast, with John Hurt and Selma Blair giving pitch-perfect performances. Extra kudos to Doug Jones, who plays a likable if neurotic creature-from-the-black-lagoon-type character with touching sincerity.
If Hellboy II: The Golden Army is meant as light, meaningless entertainment, it succeeds wonderfully. If it is indeed meant as a commentary on middle-aged male-dom, it’s brilliant, though I suspect that analysis says more about me than Hellboy. Either way, Hellboy II earns a solid five cows. What he does to them, I guess, is his business.
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