'Hellboy 2' charms and chills

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Rated PG-13

(Two and one half stars)

By Bruce Bulloch

There's a lot of strange fun to be had in "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army," though I suppose that should be expected from a movie whose protagonist sports sawed-off horns and a tail.

Like many comic-book characters that migrate to the movies, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) brings along an exotic biography. He is a demon. As a small child he was conjured up by desperate Nazis looking for a source of dark power to help their fading fortunes in the war. Instead, he is rescued by American soldiers and, in a result that adds fuel to the nature-versus-nurture debate, turns out to be a pretty good guy. Now grown up, Hellboy works for the U.S. government, has a girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), who catches fire on occasion, and his best friend Abe (Doug Jones), looks like - I kid you not - the love child of Niles Crane and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. They are an odd looking lot, but when push comes to shove they represent the last, best hope for mankind.

In this second outing of the franchise, Hellboy is about to earn his government paycheck. A race of elves cohabitates the earth and while we can't see them, they find us humans to be very irritating. Their prince, Nuada (Luke Goss), is searching for three pieces of a magical crown that, if assembled, will allow him to wake an invincible army of robots and lay waste to human civilization.

"Hellboy's" plot feels like it was patched together with bits and pieces from other fantasy films. There are mystic Nazis from "Indiana Jones," a rather icky variation of "Harry Potter's" Dragon Alley, a few "Transformers" thrown in for good measure, and Hellboy himself looks like he works out at the same gym as the Hulk. But for all its borrowed elements, "Hellboy 2" is more than a rip-off. It has a magic of its own.

Guillermo del Toro paints a landscape of the imagination that few other directors can match. As he did in "Pan's Labyrinth," del Toro employs a creative vision that is both beautiful and disturbing. The fantasy worlds of "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" were tamed by sentimentality. They were places you might like to imagine yourself inhabiting - the stuff of daydreams. Del Toro's fantasy feels more like those dreams that come in the dark of night. There is an aura of the subconscious unleashed and the result is as compelling as it is uncomfortable. In del Toro's world, creatures keep their eyes in their wings and tooth fairies are so named because they like to eat teeth.

Hellboy, Liz, and Abe do their best to keep Prince Nuada's hands off the magic crown. But there are complications. As Hellboy and Nuada battle their way across the eerie elfin landscape, Liz can't help bringing up issues about the state of her relationship with Hellboy. Meanwhile, Abe stumbles upon Nuada's twin sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), and promptly falls in love. There is something wonderful in all of this. The dissonance between del Toro's uncompromisingly surreal artistic vision and the minor domestic dramas of his heroes makes for one of film's oddest couplings, and yet it works.

There is a quirky brilliance to the film's casting. It doesn't matter what role you put Selma Blair in, she's going to come across as a stand-in for Wellesley College alumnae everywhere. In "Hellboy 2" she generates a prim beacon of light in del Toro's dark and tangled vision. Doug Jones' Abe has a similar effect. He's not as funny as Niles Crane but brings the same unquantifiable likeability. Along with Perlman's Hellboy they soften del Toro's raw creativity and keep the film from overwhelming the viewer.

"Hellboy 2" isn't the best-written film to come out this year but it will, in turn, charm you and then hit you with imagery that sends a chill down your spine. As Prince Nuada would say, "Let this remind you why you once feared the dark."

Bruce Bulloch may be reached at wseditor@robinsonnews.com.