'Hellboy II' lacks Black Magic Nazis, but it's still a great movie

I scratched another Saturn Award winner for Best Horror Movie off my list yesterday, when I rewatched the 2008 winner, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army.”

I’m a big fan of the Hellboy movies and comics and while “Hellboy II” never gets old, it’s still not as good as the first Hellboy movie. (Maybe it’s the lack of Black Magic-welding Nazis?)

“Hellboy II” was released in July 2008 and has a number of huge names associated with its production. The movie is directed by the hugely talented Guillermo del Toro and is based on the Hellboy comics written by Mike Mignola. Music for the film was provided by Danny Elfman. The movie starred Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Jeffrey Tambor, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, John Hurt and Seth MacFarlane. (This movie was actually MacFarlane’s big screen debut. MacFarlane, who is best known for his work on “Family Guy,” provided the voice for the ectoplasmically disembodied Johann Krauss.)

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it’s about an elf prince who grows tired of living in the shadows and hiding from the humans. Breaking an ancient and largely forgotten truce between elves and humans, he seeks to revive an indestructible army of robots that would wipe out the human race. Hellboy, along with the other members of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), are tasked with stopping the elf prince and his followers from taking over the world.

This movie was a financial success, posting gross revenues of $160.3 million against a budget of $85 million. It also won a number of awards. In addition to a Saturn Award, it was named IGN’s Best Fantasy Movie of 2008 and was named the Best Fantasy Movie at the 2008 Scream Awards. It was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Makeup.

Every time I watch this movie and the original Hellboy movie, I’m always struck with the same thought: Where were movies like this when I was a kid? I eat this stuff up now, but I REALLY would have eaten it up when I was about 13 years old.

In the end, I enjoyed rewatching “Hellboy II,” which put me that much closer to having watched all of the Saturn Award winners for Best Horror Movie in chronological order. I’ve got one more movie left, the 2009 winner, “Drag Me to Hell.” It’s due to arrive at the house via NetFlix tomorrow, so I hope to cross it off my list before the end of the week.