Ranking Every Guillermo Del Toro Film From Worst To Best
3. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
Has del Toro ever made a more balls-to-the-wall, ridiculously enjoyable film than this?
No, he has not.
Hellboy II is everything you wanted from the first film and more. That boring John Myers character? Kicked to the curb, written out with a single line of dialogue. Ron Perlman? He's back, delivering the best performance he's ever given. And the 'weird' stuff? Weirder than ever.
Fresh off the back of a 2007 film that earned him a great many accolades (and is still to come on this list), del Toro was enjoying a new-found creative freedom on this film, and boy-oh-boy did he utilize it. The budget is bigger and the film is positively bursting at the seems with incredible creature and location designs.
The action sequences are also bigger and better than ever. A set-piece mid-film centers around Hellboy having to down the Last Elemental, a giant plant monster, and serves as not only a stellar apex of del Toro's action credentials, but also as one of the film's most endearing moments of true emotional pathos.
One of the most shocking things about Hellboy II is its gravitas and dramatic heft. Amidst the joyous action and humor, its beating heart is the relationship between Hellboy and the human world he loves so dearly, but is destined to destroy. In essence, it is a distillation of the story of the outsider that del Toro has been telling his entire career and it works ridiculously well.