2 of 3

The unstoppable monster Wink

At the same time, Del Toro never reduces the characters to mere action figures. Not that character development is high on the movie's priorities, but the personalities and relationships remain at the fore: Hellboy's hard-boiled, blue-collar nonchalance and stoic apprehension about his relationship with Liz; Liz's wounded caution and anxiety over the secret she has not told Hellboy; Abe's diffidence, intellectual curiosity and unexpected affinity for fellow empath Nuala.

As with Peter and MJ in the Spider-Man movies, romance in Hellboy II is a driving force rather than a side dish, and impacts the action as well as creating its own set pieces. There's a hilariously offbeat Manilow Moment reminiscent of the goofy 1970s musical interludes from the latter two Spider-Man movies—and, when the end credits reprise the song, it seems to suggest that really this is what it's all about.

Then again, the sort of bond celebrated in the song can have good or bad implications. In fact, the lyrics could just as well describe the dangerous mystic connection between Nuala and Nuada as the emotions of the lovers. Then, too, there's the question whether love conflicts or competes with duty and heroism, or reaffirms them. The Spider-Man movies struggled with the first possibility before embracing the second. The Hellboy franchise hasn't gotten there yet.

Most recent comic-book movies involve a love story; Hellboy II ups the ante by adding a pregnancy—a theme Del Toro playfully drives home by including a gigantic, swollen stone fertility goddess, which plays an unexpected role in one of the early set pieces. There's also a strange bit of set design in the Brooklyn Bridge street sequence, which repeatedly depicts, on one side the street, a lit-up storefront church cross, and on the other a marquee with what seems to be a cryptic code phrase for one of the most objectionable slang terms for female anatomy.

Luke Goss as Prince Nuada

In the original Hellboy, the villains were adversaries like demons, Nazis, gods of chaos, assassins and necromancers—characters understood to be evil more or less by nature or by definition, like orcs, vampires or witches. Hellboy II shifts from this kind of mythic good-vs-evil storytelling to something more like classical mythology, with variously flawed characters on all sides.

Except for an occasional cross or rosary, the vestigial Christian influence from Hellboy is virtually gone here. In its place is something a lot like a work of pagan imagination, at times partially reminiscent of the worlds of Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki, with his ambiguous antagonists and animistic spirit-creatures.

This isn't simply a bad thing. Good-vs-evil storytelling aptly reflects the black-and-white world of spiritual warfare, but conflicts in the visible world are seldom so clear-cut. Even Nazis aren't really pure evil like demons, though movies and comic books might treat them as such. Most people who do bad or even horrible things are more like the denizens of the troll market than typical movie monsters—more interested in going about their business than making life miserable for other people.

Del Toro has fleshed out the villainy of the villains. What he still hasn't fleshed out is the heroism of the heroes—their humanity, yes, but not their heroism. Two films into the Hellboy franchise, what is still missing is redemption—a crucial theme, as Roger Ebert noted this week on his blog.

I believe Hellboy and his allies are tough and fearless enough to fight and win and save the day. I don't yet know—and I'm not sure they know—what they fight for, what they believe in, what in their world is worth saving.

Here's hoping Hellboy III finds some answers.

next page... |  2 of 3