Egon Endrenyi / Universal Studios Review in a Hurry: A rollicking popcorn flick about a demonic superman who loves kittens and cigars but who's not afraid to grab sci-fi conventions by the horns.
The Bigger Picture: He comes from a land way down under: Supernatural superhero Hellboy (Ron Perlman) is back in action and surly as ever. This time he's fighting with some scary-looking elves, his firey girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair) and—because you can't have too many enemies—his own inner demons. Unfortunately for him, only one of these problems can be solved with punching; fortunately for us, it's the elves.
Mexican-born writer-director Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) has more monsters in his head than you'd really want to shake a stick at, so he's a natural fit to adapt Mike Mignola's long-running comic. And his ambition for the sequel makes the original, for all its tentacular glory, look positively restrained. Del Toro's obvious passion for the bizarre is in full bloom here, meaning Hellboy II is absolutely crammed with icky critters, twirling swordplay and other funhouse madness.
The story moves along nicely, too. Hellboy's yearning for acceptance factors into both the plot and what we'll have to call personal growth, which is a strange thing to say about a guy who files down his horns with a belt sander and gets misty about Barry Manilow. If you're deeply into the weird, Hellboy II is just like heaven. Even if you're not, it's not half bad.
The 180—a Second Opinion: Del Toro has an obvious surplus of imagination, which turns out to be a mixed blessing: Parts of Hellboy II look like a bomb went off in a CGI factory, and any movie lucky enough to land Jeffrey Tambor shouldn't shunt him to the side the way this one does.