The Best Hellboy Movie Is On Max And Is Better Than 90% Of Modern Comic Book Blockbusters

Hellboy 2 features all of the grotesque-yet-oddly-beautiful freaks present in del Toro’s other films without any of the “adult” drama. It’s a ridiculous, over-the-top tour-de-force that does what few sequels do: outdoes its predecessor in every way. That’s no slight to Hellboy, by the way.

Hellboy 2 is just that good.

Released in 2008, Hellboy 2 takes a different path than its predecessor. Where the First Hellboy focuses on the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense stopping a Nazi plot to unleash the apocalypse, Hellboy 2 abandons real-world evil altogether and goes all in on mythology. I’m talking Elves, trolls, and an assortment of other magical beings.

A quick warning, though: if you do watch this with your kids, be prepared for them to freak out the next time they lose a tooth. In fact, you might have to abandon the whole “tooth fairy” thing altogether.

Hellboy’s second adventure picks up a year after the events in the 2004 original. Liz and Hellboy are now a couple—albeit one that fights constantly—and living at B.P.R.D. headquarters with friend and fish man Abe Sapien. Everything is going well until an evil Elf decides to track down the three pieces of a crown that will let him control the titular Golden Army—a legion of indestructible clockwork soldiers—allowing him to wipe out all humans.

It’s Hellboy, and the B.P.R.D.’s job to stop him … provided Hellboy can stop ticking everyone off long enough to complete the mission.

Hellboy 2 is like a love letter to practical creature effects. Almost everything on screen is a puppet, animatronic, makeup, or sometimes all three. And while every fantasy movie since the mid-90s has had some CGI elements, here, it’s mostly just to erase puppeteers’ limbs and whatnot.

Golden Army even has its own version of the Star Wars cantina in the Troll Market scene. Ghastly goblins, terrifying trolls, and even a guy with a castle growing out of his head all show up in what’s easily one of the film’s highlights.

The other highlight? Hellboy and Abe Sapien getting drunk and singing along to Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You.” You’ve never seen anything as surreal as Ron Perlman in full Hellboy makeup getting drunk-sad and crooning along with the guy who sang “Mandy.” I guarantee it.

Speaking of Perlman, with all respect to David Harbour, he is Hellboy. As great as he was on Sons of Anarchy, Hellboy is the part Ron Perlman was born to play. The actor captures the essence of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy comics while still making the role his own.

Meanwhile, the rest of the cast is hardly chopped liver. Hardworking creature performer Doug Jones plays no less than three monsters in Hellboy 2, but his role as fish man Abe Sapien takes the cake. Jones performed all of Abe’s movements for the original Hellboy while Frasier’s David Hyde Pierce voiced the character.

This time around, director Guillermo del Toro wisely allowed Jones to use his voice. The results speak for themselves.

Another perfectly cast role is Selma Blair as Liz Sherman. Blair masterfully acts out the mix of frustration, anger, and earnest affection Sherman feels for Hellboy. Blair ensures that underneath Liz’s fury at Hellboy’s unwillingness to change, there’s a deeply rooted love for the big red dork.

Newcomer Seth MacFarlane, who voices ectoplasmic B.P.R.D. agent Johann Krauss in Hellboy 2, holds his own against the returning cast, as does James Dodd, the operator of Krauss’ containment suit. Meanwhile, Hollywood vets Jeffrey Tambor and John Hurt don’t have as much to do in the sequel, but they absolutely nail what they’re given.

GFR SCORE

Despite being a financial and critical success, Hellboy 2 never got a sequel. Instead, the franchise was rebooted—unsuccessfully, I might add—with 2019’s Hellboy. For years, Ron Perlman and Guillermo del Toro have lobbied publicly for a Hellboy 3, but the project never materialized for various reasons.

Another reboot, Hellboy: The Crooked Man comes out later this month on September 27. I’m sure fans will give it a shot, but again, Ron Perlman is the only Hellboy I want to see.

If Guillermo del Toro‘s Hellboy series had to end after only two films, it couldn’t have gone out on a higher note than Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. You can stream this modern classic on Max, and I highly recommend that you do so.