Mari Ness - Hellboy II

So Hellboy II was a fun little flick, with a couple of great lines ("I'm not a baby, I'm a tumour!"), one major unfortunate side effect – that dumb Barry Manilow song has been stuck in my head ever since, vanishing briefly only to be brought back, and one minor irritating visual…let's call it inconvenience – the godawful golden belt/corset thing that poor Princess Nuala was stuck in, seemingly designed to make her otherwise awesome figure look as dreadful as possible – even if we could look beyond the tackiness, which I couldn't. I got, of course, from a story perspective, why the thing had to be that large – after all, if you're part of a crown, and you don't want to just look like a really tacky and oversized belt buckle, better to be part of a really tacky and oversized corset. And also, I assume that since she was wearing the corset constantly, she was also wearing the thing to bed, for, you know, thousands and thousands of years, which made me realize that the main reason her skin looked so white and dreadful wasn't actually her need to hire another maid, but her utter and complete lack of sleep over the past several years. At least Liz, in a major departure from the depiction of nearly every other woman in every other superhero movie so far, seemed to wearing appropriate clothing in most scenes. Yay for that. But I digress.

For the most part, Hellboy II is just a visually arresting comic book piece, a bit incoherent here and there, with an especially cool scene set in the magical areas underneath the Brooklyn Bridge (admit it; you've always wondered what sort of mystical market existed down there) and fun battles with tree things and clockwork things and, well, yes, that Barry Manilow bit (it's stuck in my head, so it might as well get stuck in yours.) And those so cute Tooth Fairies able to eat you all up. I always knew something was wrong with that tale.

But right underneath that is something else, something mostly incoherent: a hint of concern for human greed and consumerism, a hint of wondering if humanity is really worth saving – and, as always in del Toro films, the questioning of where the line is between fantasy and reality. It's not as powerful or as intricate or beautifully put together as Pan's Labyrinth, but it's also a lot less troubling and wrenching, and not a bad way to spend an afternoon or evening.