Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Blu-Ray Edition
Red is back and better than ever, Hellboy II: The Golden Army brings back Hellboy, Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman to combat an evil elf prince and an unstoppable army.
Film making 22/25
Cinematography 22/25
Audio 22/25
Bonus Features 24/25
Total 90/100
Hellboy II: The Golden Army brings Hellboy and his band of paranormal misfits back in a great new movie about an evil prince looking to take back the rightful place of elves and other mythical creatures. The story starts with a young Hellboy at Christmas time with his adoptive father reading him a story of mythical creatures, an army made of gold and a truce to stop humans and the creatures from warring.
Hellboy returns to the scene as a strapping young demon and he, Liz Sherman played by Selma Blair and Abe Sapien played by Doug Jones are fighting for the good of mankind. While mankind is only remotely aware of Hellboy he battles his own problems with this and other personal issues always wanting to be a part of the society he has vowed to protect.
Hellboy is sick of being relegated to the shadows when he is doing so much for humans that during the first big fight scene he deliberately forces the matter to public attention. While fighting tooth fairies, little bone eating winged creatures, Liz attempts to fry them all with her powers of pyrokinetics and inadvertently propels Hellboy out the window.
This is exactly what Hell boy wanted, to be in the public eye and not hide anymore so he stands in the window and is launched into the crowd of reporters gathered below. Jeffrey Tambor is also back as Tom Manning who tries to settle things with the team as well as Washington bigwigs and gets replaced by another freak of science Johann Krauss played by Seth McFarlane.
Johann Krauss is the new leader of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense and tries to not only make the team work better together but help Hellboy overcome his temper. In one scene between Krauss and Hellboy, Johann literally shows Hellboy his short temper and how it could lead him to more trouble than he could bargain for.
The main story is the Golden Army of the past that was created by the goblin blacksmiths for the King of the Elves, Balor who used them against the humans. The Golden Army devastated the humans so badly that Balor made a truce and vowed to never use the 4900 soldiers of the army again and locked them away.
Prince Nuada steals the first piece of a crown that controls the Golden Army from an auction house using both tooth fairies and his companion Mr Wink, a cave troll played by Brian Steele. The son of Balor, Prince Nuada is tired of mythical creatures being treated as sewer dwellers and kills his father to get the second crown piece that was divided so no one race could control the army.
Prince Nuada sends a forest elemental to attack Hellboy and his companions after they try to rescue Princess Nuala from the Troll Market under the Brooklyn Bridge. Prince Nuada’s twin sister has the third piece of the crown and hides in the security of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense.
The prince fights with Hellboy and wounds him to steal the crown piece and leaves to awaken the Golden Army so he can conquer the humans and regain his rightful place on the throne of the elves kingdom. Hellboy is wounded by a spear piece that is imbedded near his heart and cannot have the piece removed as it moves closer to his heart if disturbed.
They take Hellboy to the location of the Golden Army in Ireland and encounter the Angel of Death who agrees to remove the spear piece when she is amused by Liz’s love for Hellboy. Hellboy recovers after the Angel of Death removes the spear tip and they go on to fight the Golden Army and Prince Nuada but the Army is invincible.
A great fight scene with Hellboy shooting and tearing pieces off the mechanical soldiers and using them to beat and destroy others ensues. The soldiers are magically healed and their pieces walk, crawl and fit back together to reform and make them whole again so Hellboy challenges Prince Nuada for the throne.