Hellboy II

Went to see Hellboy II: The Golden Army with Ben Sunday night. Since everyone that was involved in the first Hellboy movie is involved in this one it has the same feel to it (which is good you liked the first one which I did). There are several storylines running through this movie. One is Hellboy's relationship with Liz. The other is Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BRPD) being a secret organization and the reaction when they 'inadvertantly' go public. And then finally there's the main plot of creatures from the mystical underworld out trying to extract revenge on humanity by awakening the indestructible golden army with it's 70 times 70 warriors.

Guillermo del Toro is back as the director of this one and obviously has a feel for the characters as he along with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola were responsible for the storyline. A couple things take some getting used to, Abe is voiced by the actor playing him now (Doug Jones) instead of David Hyde Pierce. If you watched the Hellboy animated shows on Cartoon Network this one won't be as big of a shock since Doug Jones did the voice of Abe in those animated films. The other is somewhat forced inclusion of ectoplasmic Johann Krauss onto the BRPD team. He's another character from the comics and they just sort of introduce him and put him on the team. The weird thing is since everything is potentially so weird in the Hellboy universe having an non corporeal ectoplasmic guy show up with basically no explanation doesn't even seem odd. Overall if you liked the first Hellboy movie you'll probably like this one (I still think I liked the first one better, but this was pretty good).