Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (12A)

In these days of production line blockbusters it’s not that often that the director gets a look in.

Off the top of their heads how many people could name the makers behind the likes of Hancock, Prince Caspian, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk or even The Dark Knight?

And despite Steven Spielberg’s name on the credits for the Indiana Jones sequel, he was lost amid the general fuss over the much-loved action hero’s return.

Guillermo del Toro might not be a household name just yet, and it’s maybe not the catchiest of names, but the portly Mexican now carries enough clout to make what might have been just another sequel into one of the summer season’s most tempting prospects.

His reputation took a giant leap forward with 2006’s dark fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth, the Spanish-language arthouse hit which crossed over to mainstream success.

For this reason Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (12A) has gradually been sizing itself up as this year’s dark horse amid another otherwise pretty lame herd.

The main difference here of course is that del Toro is back in Hollywood blockbuster mode, following his hand in the likes of Mimic, Blade 2 and the first Hellboy film, which didn’t exactly set the world alight but was a moderate hit.

The titular comic book character, created by Mike Mignola, is a truculent mass of burly red muscle and anger, but with a big sensitive side to match; so like most adolescent boys then, but considerably redder and bulked up.

The plot’s a fairly haphazard affair, taking a bit of a backseat to the characters and a series of set pieces, some of which are trademark del Toro in their impressive scope, detail and unadulterated fantasy.

An atmospheric prologue takes us back to Hellboy’s post-war beginnings, with surrogate dad Professor Bruttenholm giving the young impressionable demon with the mutantly large right fist a bedtime story.

The prof being John Hurt, this already gives the film a Storyteller feel as he talks about the fabled Golden Army, the thousands of clockwork soldiers created to protect the Elvish kingdom.

Fast forward to the present day and we return to the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence, a kind of Watchmen meets Men in Black-style agency for which Hellboy, pyrotechnic girlfriend Liz and aquatic telepath Abe Sapien work.

A new character is thrown into the mix in the form of Johann Krauss, a mechanically-driven, by-the-book agent whose Germanic fussiness is caricatured, but nonetheless rather fun.

Inevitably the dark forces – here the internecine Elf kingdom – intrude, as the king’s rebellious son, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss of pop duo Bros fame) decides he’s fed up of being ruled over by the humans and to that end wants to awaken the Golden Army (based underground in Northern Ireland bizarrely).

The hero’s group dynamic keeps the movie pretty light, even if the humour is perhaps too broad and childish for older or more cynical audiences, while it also at least allows its characters space to develop, which is more than most blockbusters bother.

And it helps that the cast fit the bill, including Selma Blair as the embattled Liz and Doug Jones as academic Abe, with Ron Perlman again at the heart of things as the reactionary, but otherwise endearing cigar-chomping hero.

But it’s no surprise here that the real star is again del Toro’s imagination with some wondrous spectacles, not least a rampaging forest monster sequence as well as an early set-piece involving some creepy piranha-like tooth fairies.

Sometimes he pushes things a bit far, but with Peter Jackson off making a film of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, and with del Toro next making the two Hobbit films, that makes the Mexican the best fantasy film-maker in town.