Movie Review: Hellboy II

What do you get when you combine crap acting, crap writing, $65 million in crap CGI, heavy-handed Tecate product placement, and freaky fish/elf sex? Why, you get the epic sucktacular that is Hellboy II, The Golden Army!!!

I really don't know what to say about Hellboy II. I mean, I like monsters, I like action, I like special FX, but I did not like this movie. It was just bad. Really bad. So bad, I skipped out early from work to see it, and felt cheated afterwards because work would have been more entertaining.

How can I explain this movie to you? Well, start with Men In Black 2, which sucked badly enough on its own, then mix in a few characters from Lord of the Rings, and imagine a movie that is about twice as bad as what you have pictured in your mind right now.

A great deal of Hellboy II is a quasi-Men in Black ripoff, with the characters lounging around the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. Of course, lots of wacky alien/monster slapstick is constantly occuring in the background, and none of it works. It's forced and corny.

They also tried to make this Hellboy more appealing to a wider audience by cutting down the machismo, and inserting a storyline about Hellboy's relationship and how he's sad that his girlfriend is mad at him. FAIL. The best feature of Hellboy is his macho ass-kicking attitude, but now that they've made him into a weepy emo chick a-la Spiderman 3, he holds no appeal. It also doesn't help that the heavy makeup and rubber face-masks meant the characters showed no emotion in their faces, which is kind of necessary for a storyline about relationships.

All in all, Hellboy II was painfully boring and corny through most of the movie. There were a few chuckles, but no drama, no intense action, and no real story to appreciate. I would recommend it if it came on late-night TV and you had to pick between Hellboy II, and say... Yentl.

SCORING: I give Hellboy II 1 Agent Smith out of a possible 5.