HellBoy II: The Golden Army (2008)

Elevator Pitch: In the distant past the Elves have created an army of robot warriors, with which to defeat the humans, it will respond to the wearer of the golden crown. An elf prince is collecting bits of the crown to resurrect the army and dispatches the people attending an auction where part of it is being sold. Hellboy, who is rebelling agains the secrecy of the  Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence, his girfriend and his new boss, Johann Krauss, an ectoplasmic entity, investigat the crime and are led into the magic realm, where they will face up to the elf prince and find the army.

Content: How much time have you got? Hellboy falls out with his girlfriend who spends a lot of time on fire. The fish man falls for the elf princess, the team are attacked by “tooth fairies” at the auction site and Hellboy takes on an enormous plantlike entity in the street, resultign in a lot of TV exposure. At various times Hellboy and the elf prince fight, resulting finally in him being injured to the point of death. They travel to Northern Ireland where Hellboy may be saved, and the Golden Army located.

A View: The director is a darling of the critics and so most of them gave it a tick up. But it seemed to me that character development had been abandoned in favour of special effects, although the ectoplasmic entity was fun. There is so much fighting and so many strange beings that I began to suffer from monster fatigue. I did not like it as much as the first, particularly since the film ends with a bit of a cliff hanger, suggesting a third film which has not been made. Given a choice watch the first film, and if you like it go on to this one for the cost of a download.

Additional info: Johann Krauss, the ectoplasmic entity is a German but the director did not like the accent of the German actor hired, and so was replaced by Seth MacFarlane.