Rated PG13

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Doug Jones, Seth MacFarlane

Heidi’s Illustrious Rating: 3.5

Word of Warning: Comic book/fantasy style violence and some sinister, creepy characters that could be very frightening to a young viewer.

Surprised by my enjoyment of the first Hellboy movie, I had no hesitation about seeing the sequel, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army.” Hellboy is a character from an independent comic book publisher, Dark Horse Comics. Dark Horse published atypical comic book tales. These comics are fantastical; the characters fight the supernatural, as well as the usual suspects, such as Nazis. These comics thread together the fantasy world, mythical world and real world, in a dizzying display of guns and magic.

Hellboy was a young demon found by U.S. soldiers along the coast of Scotland. He is raised by the government and becomes a member of the super secretive government agency, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

In this movie, Hellboy’s girlfriend, Liz Sherman has moved in with him. Liz is a human mutant who has pyrokinesis abilities, in other words, she can create fire with her mind. The two are having some rather amusing mutant versus demon relationship issues.

The major plot of the movie involves an ancient truce between the elves and humans. The Elf King who originally made the truce, has a son who desperately wants to break the truce. He envisions elves ruling the world and will do anything to see his vision realized.

The Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense is called in to help with the situation and a chain of events is set in motion that make Hellboy began to question where he fits in. As he is introduced to a fantasy world of characters just like him, he begins to wonder if he belongs in the human world, or a world where he could be revered instead of feared; a world in which a demon isn’t considered an oddity, but is considered a god.

Ron Perlman delivers an outstanding performance as the red, horned, cigar-smoking Hellboy. David Jones, who started his career as a mime, plays the odd-merman type creature of the sea, Abe Sapien, a fellow member of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. This tie-died blue character falls in love with an elf during the movie, inevitable leading the audience to wonder how exactly that would work. Luke Gross is absolutely terrifying as the elf Prince Nuada – he’s definitely no Legolis.

Some of you may think this all sounds rather strange and it is. This particular movie feels a bit like “Lord of the Rings” meets “Spider Man.” Guillermo del Toro directed this movie as well as the fantastically dark film “Pan’s Labyrinth.” He has brought the shadowy look and feel of “Labyrinth” to this movie, along with the many weird underworld creatures that hide in the deepest crevasse of our nightmares.

Blending our knowledge of superheroes with fantasy characters, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is pure ocular entertainment. It may not be the most intellectual movie of the year, but the plot is straightforward (save the world) and the even though the characters have strange and exotic powers, we can relate to their very human-like problems. If you enjoy this genre of movie, don’t miss “Hellboy II” on the big screen.

**Also appearing in the Berthoud Weekly Surveyor.