Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Cert 12A, 120 mins)
Stars: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, Jeffrey Tambor, John Hurt
Written by Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola
Directed by Guillermo del Toro

HELLBOY II: The Golden Army continues this summer's bumper crop of superior comic book to film adaptations and surpasses it's predecessor by delivering a thoroughly entertaining romp which is both a feast for the eyes and a treat for the funny bone.

Director Guillermo del Toro marries the fantastic to the everyday and succeeds in giving us an essentially mainstream action blockbuster that is also bursting with the remarkable visual style, memorable characters and the bittersweet pathos he so beautifully brought to the more arthouse Pan's Labyrinth.

The simple, yet quickly flowing plot has the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BRPD) going up against the (justifiably) peeved nations of the Fae (elves, trolls, goblins and a myriad of other magical creatures) who have been pushed to the grimiest edges of the world thanks to humanity's relentless consuming greed.

After a quirky CGI marionette-styled fable tells us about the ancient war the two sides once fought, we learn that Balor (Roy Dotrice), king of the elves, commissioned the creation of the Golden Army, a magically crafted unstoppable fighting force to end the battles once and for all. Sickened by the bloodshed, the king called a truce and vowed to never unleash the army again, breaking the crown needed to control it into three pieces.

But the unquenchable avarice of humanity enrages his son Prince Nuada (an unrecognisable Luke Goss) who vows to one day take back what the Fae have lost and end humanity's threat, once and for all.

Despite the somewhat thin plot and sometimes clunky script, the story works thanks to its focus on the characters and all their lovingly rendered loves, dislikes, perfections and peccadillos. The affection del Torro holds for them is obvious and contagious. Unlike the first Hellboy film, there is no human buffer to navigate the audience through BRPD's resident 'freaks'. The team members are fully fleshed out and jump at the chance to be centre stage.

Ron Perlman devours the central role with the same gusto that Hellboy uses to chug beer, peppering proceedings with a machine gun barrage of dry wit, great physical presence and spiffy one liner's (plus the best drunken duet of Barry Manilow's Can't Smile Without You that you will ever see on celluloid). Then again you wouldn't really expect a massive, wise-cracking, fire-engine-red demon to be a wallflower would you?    

He is ably supported by Selma Blair as Liz Sherman, fierier in this sequel (in more ways than one) as Hellboy's pyrokinetic lover. Doug Jones also returns as the aquatic intellectual, Abe Sapien - left unusually tongue-tied by a budding romance with Nuada's twin sister, the ethereally lovely Princess Nuala (Anna Walton).

Meanwhile Jeffrey Tambor amuses as the long-suffering suit who futilely tries to reign in all of BRPD's supernatural weirdness, a task not helped by his new boss, a literal gas-bag named Johann Krauss (voiced by Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane).

Luke Goss makes a worthy foe. Prince Nuada mixes some rather impressive fight choreography and provides an unexpectedly tricky moral conundrum which makes both the heroes and the audience doubt who they should side with, and also whether saving the often violently ungrateful mass of humanity is worth any kind of sacrifice at all.

But Hellboy II's greatest strengths are it's stunningly inventive visuals, brilliantly creative effects and wonderful costume and make-up.

Some truly astonishing set pieces include an amazing battle with a gigantic nature god, a jaw-dropping visit to the Troll Market (think of a darker version of fantasy illustrator Brian Froud and director Jim Henson's Labyrinth rather than Harry Potter's Diagon Alley), some not so cute Tooth fairies with ravenous appetites, a terrifyingly enthralling encounter with the Angel of Death, and the unstoppable supernaturally monstrous clock-work Golden Army itself.

This fantastical world is lovingly filled to the brim with the beautifully grotesque that is both gorgeous and terrifying. An action-packed modern day fairy tale in the best sense, where a harmless aspect can hide the worst kind of horror, and an apparent monster can hide the heart of a hero.