Hellboy's back and more audacious fun than ever

Since it's not appropriate for a grown man to file a review that consists of "Wheeee!" I'll say these things:

Director Guillermo del Toro is a mad genius, and I want to get drunk with him.

"Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is a flawed but tremendously fun comic-book flick with awe-inspiring visuals.

And I never thought a Barry Manilow song could be used for anything but evil.

The sequel to 2004's "Hellboy" — based on Mike Mignola's outstanding Dark Horse comic — is an improvement heavily infused with the bizarre, Rococo aesthetic of del Toro's Oscar-winning "Pan's Labyrinth." That said, it's also hilarious when Hellboy (Ron Perlman) just says "Oh, crap," before brawling with big monsters.

Big, broken-horned, cigar-chomping, beer-guzzling "Red" is still with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, and now in a bickering relationship with fire-girl Liz Sherman (Selma Blair). Fish-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) discovers she's pregnant but hasn't told him. And smarmy boss Manning (Jeffrey Tambor), frustrated by Hellboy's apparent inability to keep a low profile, has brought in a new commander: Johann Krauss (the voice of Seth MacFarlane), an ectoplasmic German smoke being in a domed, Jules Verne-looking suit.

The call to action comes when an elf prince (Luke Goss), who looks like Edgar Winter, gets fed up and decides to break an eons-long truce by reassembling a magic crown that will activate an indestructible golden army that will wipe out humanity.

Stop for a second. (Sound of needle scratching record.) That sentence sounds ridiculous. But del Toro has created such an amazing, unique fantasy universe — from a "troll market" to a giant plant "elemental" — that it feels like they gave the biggest nerd in the world the keys to the toy store, and it's never dumb. Even the martial-artist elf and his twin sister are tolerable (which bodes well for del Toro's planned "Hobbit" movies).

None of it would matter without Perlman, whose swaggering performance comes through all the prosthetics and red paint with the gravelly voice and weary delivery of a film-noir detective. By the time he's said, "Oh, crap," again, has climbed atop a big, neon hotel sign holding a baby with his tail, and fights that plant monster, comic fans will want to move to California and marry the guy. But kids will go nuts, too. Other impressive action set pieces include a climactic duel atop giant, rotating clockwork gears.

It's too bad that del Toro persists with jokey sitcom dialogue at the expense of Mignola's much darker Hellboy world. Likewise, a stroll through B.P.R.D. headquarters is way too much like "Men in Black," bustling with wacky monsters and their agent-wranglers. In fact, the movie should have been called "Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II," because fans are never going to see their comic book on the screen. (And by the way, Abe still just looks like a guy in a rubber fish costume, and is nearly useless in the action department.)

But that's not an accident committed by a director-for-hire who doesn't get it. He takes it in his direction and floors it. Something you'd never see in the comic book is one of the best things in the film: Red and Abe getting sloppy drunk because of women, and singing along with "Can't Smile Without You" — surely one of the greatest musical abominations yet perpetrated on sentient beings.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com