Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

When the original Spider-Man movie came out in 2002, I was disappointed by it. I felt like the action looked too CGI-ed, the story was weak and the Green Goblin lacked any real motivation to be, y'know, evil. I was one of the people who helped it to $115+ Million in box office on its opening weekend. But that was the only time I saw it in the theaters and never watched it on DVD. However when the second movie came out, it was my favorite movie of 2004. My best guess is that since the first one made Sony so much money, they left Sam Raimi alone for the second one.

Which is exactly what seems to have happened to Hellboy in a roundabout way. The first one came out in 2004 and wasn't very good. It had some promise but didn't follow through on it largely getting lost in the smart aleck aspects of Hellboy instead of the comic book's mythology. Normally that's the end of the line for an action movie franchise, especially one that doesn't even make back its production budget. There was a catch. Guillermo Del Toro, the director of "Hellboy", made "Pan's Labyrinth" as his next project. That movie was well-reviewed and raked in more than four times its production budget. Suddenly Del Toro was a hot director again and the door was reopened for a Hellboy sequel.

The result, "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army", is the best movie of this year so far exceeding "Iron Man", "Get Smart" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". Basically Del Toro was allowed to work to his strengths. He was able to build a fantastic world on the mythology of Hellboy (that's basically what comic books are, modern hero mythology) and make a visually stunning movie which doesn't feel like it was whipped up on a Mac. The number of practical effects in this movie are refreshing in the world that gave us both Hulk movies. Add in that the story suceeds on the both the Big Problem and little problems levels and it's what makes a great comic book movie.

It's amazing on some level that Hellboy movies are being made. Just like DareDevil, Iron Man and Elektra, the level of awareness of the Hellboy character amongst the general non-comic-book-reading populace should be limited to the family and significant others of people who read Hellboy. Instead a really good and well-done too sequel to an earlier box office bust based on Hellboy was the number one movie this weekend. Almost 8 years to the day from when my brother and I saw the X-Men movie at the Mall of America, the comic book movie has become more than just an abberation or a curiosity that lives off of previously existing fans. It is healthy and survives under its own merit as a viable genre and that's amazing like Spider-man.