2008
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Jeffrey Tambor, Seth MacFarlane, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, Roy Dotrice
SPOILER WARNING: I am going to talk a lot about what happens in this film. If you have not seen Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and do not wish to read spoilers, STOP READING NOW.
All right, here we go. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is one of my favorite films. When it's on television and I have the time I will watch it. It's a comfort movie. I know it's ten years old now, but I feel like reviewing it.
I was just watching it on tv a short while ago and I realized that this film is a terribly poignant movie. Hellboy was an action movie and a funny movie. Hellboy 2 is funny too, and has plenty of big action scenes, but it's crammed with poignant moments and those are what make it special for me.
The poignancy starts early on, when Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) must go to meet his father, the king of the elves, in a dingy building in an industrial district. It continues when Nuada murders his own father to claim the first part of the Crown of Bethmora.
It's terribly poignant when Hellboy chooses to destroy the beautiful forest god, last of its kind, that Nuada used to attack the citizens of New York. It's poignant when the crowd turns on Hellboy despite his having just rescued a baby from the creature, and when Liz (Selma Blair) must finally face that her fiery power has permanently separated her from the rest of the ordinary human world.
Abe Sapien's (Doug Jones) affection for Princess Nualla (Anna Walton) is poignant when you imagine how the amphibious man has spent his life in isolation being treated as a lab specimen. Liz's determination do whatever it takes to save Hellboy after Nuada mortally wounds him is poignant. Liz making an agreement to accept the consequences of saving Hellboy is poignant. Princess Nualla sacrificing her own life to stop her twin brother from destroying the world is poignant, as is Abe's sorrow at her loss, and the way the elves turn to brittle stone and crumble to dust when they die.
The feeling of painful love and loss is heavy in this movie. The magical supernatural world to which Nuada and Nualla belong is fading, vanishing from the world. It will never be seen again. Perhaps no one will ever again visit the underground chamber in Ireland where the Golden Army rests. No one will wake the giant who guards the entrance and it will sleep forever. Maybe no one will ever make an agreement with the Angel of Death again.
There's also an element of poignancy for me because there will never be another Hellboy movie starring this cast directed by this director. Hellboy has moved on. Another actor has taken the role, another creative team has made their own version. That's a pity, because Ron Perlman was the perfect actor to play Hellboy in my opinion, and Guillermo del Tor was the perfect director to impart his special visual and storytelling touches to the film. I doubt the new creative team will produce something like the sorrowful love stories in this movie or the achingly beautiful forest god. I wish there had once been things like the forest god in the world. I feel sorrow that such a thing has never been.
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