Trailer Watch: All Hellboy Breaks Loose

(Posted by Peter Debruge)

Few filmmakers can connect with their inner child the way Guillermo del Toro does, although that quality looks like it just might undermine how much we grown-ups have to look forward to in Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

After an elegant teaser that laid out many of these same images in a semi-logical fashion that adults could appreciate comes this "show everything" cocktail designed (it would seem) to appeal to the kiddies. It's fitting that del Toro is making this series for Universal since he clearly has the studio's classic monster movies in mind — then again, Uni's recent Mummy retreads sacrificed the creaky, B-movie appeal of the original series for noisy CG-heavy effects, and del Toro's first Hellboy picture wasn't much different.

This franchise, of course, is del Toro's big passion project, and he's admitted that he didn't have the budget he wanted last time. But surely script comes first, and it's tough to judge by this trailer — which puts the visuals front and center — how strong the story will be. Still, amid the frenzy, it's possible to decipher that all manner of monsters (how 'bout those visionary "forces beyond our understanding"?) emerge to do battle with the humans, and that Hellboy and his gang will have to choose sides. Sounds a lot like the "mutants vs. humans" dilemma of the X-Men series. Can we trust del Toro to get it right?