“I’m not a baby. I’m a tumor.”
While I agree with Roeper and Company that this year has produced some superior superhero movies, even the best has been weighed down to some degree by typical alter-ego suspenseÑa tension felt by the hero as he tries to balance public life with the most private of obligations. Bruce Banner is a quiet presence in an equatorial bottling plant who, outside of work, tries to cure himself of the Hulk; Tony Stark is a weapons manufacturer for the United States military and womanizing “Merchant of Death” who also happens to fight terrorism in an iron suit; even Bruce Wayne finds time between fighting crime as Batman to lose a girlfriend. None of them want to be exposed as heroes, for various reasons, and this lends their respective storylines added, though unnecessary, anxiety. (To their credit, the writers of Iron Man use the closing moments of their film to swift-kick this cliché in the ribs.)
What’s so alluring about the Hellboy films, other than the talent involved, is the simple fact that Hellboy has no secret he must keep privateÑhe is the secret. So while Tony Stark and Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne live out their public lives, albeit with a little trepidation over their duties, Hellboy isn’t allowed one. Sure, he’s got a significant other, but they can never been seen together by anyone outside the Bureau wallsÑsad substitutions, they note, for the painted walls of a “normal” home. And when he’s finally exposed, he doesn’t receive the attention a superhero should, the attention he expects: He is heckled on the street and becomes tabloid-television fodder before being accused of endangering the life of a baby. The scene that audiences have reacted to the most strongly, and rightly so, comes soon afterwards, when Hellboy and Abe Sapien get drunk and sing along to Barry Manilow. We laugh because the moment is funny, even as we acknowledge the truth in their heartbreak.
Hellboy II ends on a note of poisoned optimism: The heroes leave the screen in search of a life that matches what they see as normal, even as we recall the warnings of the beautifully gothic Angel of Death from only scenes before about Hellboy’s destiny. This sequel is obviously the second installment in a trilogy that seems destined for a dark and unavoidable conclusion; where Del Toro’s original was lighthearted, perhaps because it was the obligatory introduction, The Golden Army finds its plot in Hellboy’s mixed feelings over his role in the human world. It’s a lesson other superhero movies should head, even if it means throwing in a Manilow tune or two.
by Adam Balz | Source: 35MM Theatrical Print
26 Jul 2008 5:08 PM | Submit Comment