It was either Hancock or Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Both of the films are equally appealing to me. They are both in the anti-hero “superhero” genre and have very amusing plots. In the end I decided to go with Hellboy because even though a drunken flying superhero really tickles my fancy, a demon that cuts his horns to fit in, is something that I find very hard to resist. Other factors in my decision are that I enjoyed very much the first Hellboy film and was curious of Guillermo Del Toro’s take on this one.

If you didn’t know, Hellboy is about a demon child discovered by the Nazis in the 1940’s and raised by Professor Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm. Hellboy and other characters like Abe Sapien end up working for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, a “top secret” government organization. It’s like Men In Black meets X-Men meets Harry Potter.

The movie starts with a flashback with teenage Hellboy being told by the Professor the story of The Golden Army. Guillermo Del Toro doesn’t wait any moment putting his stamp on this first scene with his freaky fairy tale puppets. Prince Nuadia, an elfish kabuki like creature, is pissed off with humanity and want’s to awaken the Golden Army. That’s how deep this characters goes, but he is way freaking cool. The plot and the action is all about Hellboy and company trying to stop him.

We get to see a lot of Guillermo del Toro’s freaky monsters with weird shape heads and eyes in odd places. There’s even what I think an homage to Star Wars. In the pursuit of the Nuadia dude, they end up in Trolls Market, a place that’s located under the Brooklyn bridge. It looks and feels like the bar scene in Tattoine. The film has also many funny moments. Abe Sapien, the intellectual Aquaman, falls in love with Nuadia’s twin sister, gets drunk with Hellboy and end up listening together to Barry Manilow’s Can’t Smile Without You. There’s also Johann Krauss, a german gas like entity living in a steampunk robo suit.

At moments, the film feels like too much. There are off course many action sequences and many monsters, but in the end it’s all about enjoying the ride. I sure can’t wait for the next one. Very curios about Hellboy’s “offsprings”.