EDITOR'S NOTE: Four our first review of HELLBOY II, check out Cinema Knife Fight.

I did not want to walk into the theater today with any sort of high expectations for HELLBOY II. Despite my adoration for the original HELLBOY story and my love affair with Guillermo del Torro's directorial genius, I truly did not. However, as I sat in my seat this afternoon, watching the credits rolling up the screen as I waited to see if there was a special feature at the end of them, I realized that I had accidentally layered my subconscious with kid-on-Christmas-morning anticipation. I sighed, finished the last of my beer and headed for the exit feeling a little befuddled with disappointment. I knew HELLBOY II was going to be campy and I was completely at ease with this notion given that the first movie was extremely campy and that's one of the qualities of the film that made it endearing. I knew I was expecting a couple of hours of intense luscious CGI eye-candy. And I was not disappointed in either of these two deliveries. However, I suppose what made me feel a bit empty as I left the theater was the realization that I had expected more from the actual storyline than what del Torro had provided.

Beneath the dazzling array of trolls and flesh-eating tooth fairies, mesmerizingly eerie elves and Hellboy's unmistakable brick-red mug, the tale was a simple one: a gluttonous, ignorant mankind versus the dying world of magic. It is truly a tale as old as humanity itself and one that is not dismissed lightly for it is a tale which delivers, in and of itself, a powerful message about the sanctity of the unknown and how easy it is to turn our backs on it in this day and age. However, it is also a tale that has been told a hundred-thousand fold and, if told again, needs a fresh voice, a new twist, a different angle to make it truly noteworthy. From this perspective, the movie fell disappointingly flat. One of Guillermo del Torro's greatest strengths as a director, in my opinion, is in his storytelling abilities. It is what I fell in love with in PAN'S LABRYINTH, what made me pay full price to see the movie three times on the big screen. Knowing that HELLBOY is one of del Torro's passions makes me wonder why he did not spend more time developing a more intricate plot, a more elaborate story for his audience to immerse themselves within? If I had the chance to sit down face to face with del Torro, this would be the first question I would ask and if I ever have the chance, I plan to do this very thing.

Storyline asides, there were, unfortunately, other aspects of the film which simply didn't agree well with me. First and foremost, the way in which Hellboy (Ron Perlman) is portrayed in this film is, well, almost...pathetic. In the first film, he was arrogant and comical, as the character should be portrayed. However, in this second installment, the writers have reduced him to a drunken, bumbling ass of a creature in many instances. Does he still save the day in the end? Well, of course, it's Hellboy, after all, but my respect for the character was nearly obliterated halfway through the movie. The other character for which I lost almost all respect was Abraham Sapien (Doug Jones). In the first film there was a sort of comical class to the character, an endearing aristocratic aloofness that made you feel as if he were the one actually holding the outfit together, the brains behind the brawn, so to speak. However, in this film he is just as awkward and bumbling as Hellboy himself. I can't decide if this is due to a bad script or the delivery of the bad script by Doug Jones (though he does redeem himself with the portrayal of the Angel of Death character later in the film). I have to admit that I would find it hard to put the needed charisma into a script that, at times, is simply downright juvenile and ridiculous, at least for Hellboy and his team. It's obvious the writers were attempting to create a massive distinction between Hellboy's slovenly humanized world and the immensely more powerful and elegant fairy world. They succeeded in a rather blunt and uncouth manner, to show how our gluttonous world has made us weak and soft and vulnerable. However, the end result was a film that felt fractured as two completely different sets of writers worked on the two worlds.

Despite all of my criticism of this film for the lack of originality in the storyline and script, I still managed find myself highly entertained largely in part because of the spectacular special effects and dizzying array of bizarre otherworldly creatures, which were a definite del Torro fingerprint. Lush and vibrant, HELLBOY II is a visual delight, introducing the viewer to a myriad of astoundingly detailed characters as it pushes the limitations of present day CGI technology. The film was also saved by the ethereal performances of Luke Goss and Anna Walton, who filled the roles of Prince Nuada and Princess Nuala. Luke Goss, in particular, was a commanding presence on the screen, creating a deep sympathy for his character's warped desire to wage war upon humanity. Throughout the film, I found myself siding more with his cause than that of Hellboy, simply for the conviction and anguish Goss depicted in Prince Nuada. Honestly, at the end of the film I found myself thinking that I might rather have seen Nuada win than Hellboy...

Ah, expectations, woeful lofty expectations! However, even if I had not been the zealous Hellboy fan I have been throughout the years before setting foot inside the theater, I still would have found it hard to look past the flaws in this film. For all of its dazzlingly beautiful "glamour", as the fairy folk would call it, HELLBOY II pales in many ways to the endearingly campy original film. Would I recommend you see this film while it is in on the big screen? Yes, simply because the visual effects must be experienced in that grand of a scale. However, I would make it a matinee and just remember to not get your hopes up too high.