Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Hellboy II, directed by visionary director, Guillermo del Toro (Pans Labyrinth).  Hellboy returns to defend the world against the "things that go bump in the night".  Hellboy himself is a daemon, (son of the devil, I think..?), that was discovered by the US Army during World War II and raised by a loving father.  Under the direction of his father, he helps create and become the face of a secret government agency known as the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, along with his girlfriend who can control and engulf her body in fire and an aquatic-humanoid known as Abraham Sapien.  This time around they're defending the world from the rage of an elf prince that is fed up with the thousands of years old truce that has kept peace between the human world and the bizarre creature world, and wishes to release the wrath of the robotic "Golden Army" that once brought the human world to submission so many years ago.

I liked the first Hellboy movie, I didn't think it was great, but it was fun and inventive, kind of a different version of X-Men.  The second one is an improvement on the first.  Hellboy is a fun hero, he loves TV, drinks beer, smokes cigars and has a temper problem.  The creature design and makeup effects, like all of Guillermo del Toro's films, is unbelievable.  They are some of the most inventive and original creatures seen in movies today.  The first about hour or hour and a half of the movie is fun and engaging but at a certain point I kind of lost interest in the story and characters, maybe that's because of the pacing of the story or my unfamiliarity with the characters, I'm not sure.  The characters are fun and interesting, one great character is introduced, voiced by Seth McFarland (the dad in Family Guy) a German spirit that is encased inside a kind of deep-sea looking suit, brings a lot of fun and whit to the story.  The story kind of picks back up towards the end, enough so to make me enjoy the movie as a whole.  It's not fantastic but it's fun and the look of the creatures is worth a trip to your local Blockbuster, Red Box or the effort of your right index finger will make by clicking and adding it to your Netflix list.

**1/2 out of 4 - Somewhere in between must see and rentable.