Pan’s Labyrinth 2 Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is classic Del Toro; a visually stunning feast of art direction, costume design and enigmatic surrealism. Though not his best film (it falls somewhere between the first Hellboy and Blade 2), its surely more than entertaining enough to hold audiences over another week before the highly anticipated release of The Dark Knight.

The film revolves around an ancient fairytale concerning the war between mankind and magical creatures. In this fable, man’s infinite greed and expansive disposition to exploit the world places him into direct tension with the forces of nature. A stalemate exists until a goblin creates an indestructible army of “seventy times seventy soldiers” that reeks havoc and mayhem on not only mankind, but the earth itself. Regretting his decision, the king of the mythical world hides the golden army and breaks the mechanism that controls them -- a golden crown -- into three pieces and creates a truce with mankind (the humans get the cities, the mythical creatures get the forests)

Flash forward to the present. Mankind has expanded his dominion across the world and certain mythical creatures feel that they got the shaft of the truce. One such character is the son of the king who made the truce. Feeling that man is a bane, he seeks to lead a rebellion by reawakening the golden army by assembling the crown that controls them.

And here, we have the plot. Hellboy, the government’s “secret” weapon from the cold war, is a demon who defends mankind from the paranormal. He is also nothing short of a sonnuvah bitch rebel with many complex inner issues -- he is mankind’s only hope and yet mankind shuns him. He also thoroughly hates the people he works for (don’t we all)? Del Toro probes the depths of Hellboy’s soul with an introspective lightheartedness in the writing and capriciously entertaining persona in the acting (Ron Perlman simply kicks ass as Hellboy); this combination allows for meaningful and necessary character development without treading too heavily and detracting from the film (take notes here, Ang Lee).

Hellboy 2 is not your average comic book movie. It is not “action heavy,” though there is plenty of action and the screen adaptation is not as dark as your average adult oriented graphic novel (especially that of Hellboy). Unlike the first Hellboy, the sequel is more fantastic than one might expect, though there is a constant suspension of disbelief. Perhaps it might be best to describe

Hellboy 2 less as a comic book adaptation and more as an adoption of a children’s fable for adults (ie, The Brothers Grimm).

Then again, what are we much expecting just seven short days before the release The Dark Knight? We just want something to hold us over another week, and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army does much more than that. At the very least, you will be amazed by the costumes and creatures.