Hellboy II: The Golden Army

No matter how enthused people were over Iron Man or even The Incredible Hulk they now have to rethink their superhero accolades because Hellboy II is just what those other superhero movies weren't - funny, engaging, cleverly written, and with a lot of heart. It's little surprise writer/director Guillermo del Toro will next turn his talent to the Peter Jackson produced The Hobbit. Jackson seems to recognize the kind of vision del Toro offers, and with as many lackluster movies as the studios release they too should jump on the del Toro bandwagon.
Oddly and perhaps a tad off subject, the first Hellboy was screened at 10 p.m. on the Thursday night before it opened and had a cool Top Secret folder type press kit. For the sequel it was a Tuesday night screening, enough time to savor the feeling before the typical Friday reviews. As fate would have it the screening of Hellboy II: The Golden Army was marred by a faulty projector lighting source, an errant xenon bulb that rendered the image too dim to actually distinguish details in the obviously fine tuned cinematography. del Toro and DP Guillermo Navarro establish an instant noir mood as much of the film is dark to begin with. There's only one real bright daylight scene and that's at the end (just like Dark City). But being the film (geek?) pro I am I found it a great opportunity to actually train my eye to differentiate bad luminosity. And after a couple of reels the film did seem to gain a lumen, but it was still too dim to register the kind of nuances you see on the big screen as opposed to even Blu-Ray DVD. I once attended a screening of Persona where one projector was broken so the entire film was shown reel by reel, with a brief pause between each changeover. In other words, I have a better handle on how to visualize the proper amount of projected light to portray darkness. End of digression.
Hellboy II offers one scene that cements del Toro's ability to bond his subject with an audience. Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones who also dons heavy make-up to play two other creatures) get knee wobbling drunk on Tecate (like del Toro a stout Mexican product) and the scene plays as funny and yet profound as any scene you can name from any really good movie. del Toro knows how to drive a sequence from comedy to pathos to danger with the turn of a switch. After this bonding scene the ending sequence in which Sapien and Hellboy makes instant life or death decisions not only plays with operatic precision, it's just plain fun.
There are visual references to earlier del Toro films like the mechanical egg of Cronos, the sideways closing eye p.o.v. from The Devil's Backbone or the look of the creatures from Pan's Labyrinth. It was easy enough to give the May releases an easy pass because they accomplished a minimum of cinematic momentum and entertainment. Hellboy II just ratcheted up the bar for what to expect, both with action editing and emotional tone, from superhero movies.