During the bank holiday weekend back in reality as I’m now beginning to equate the London experience with the rest of Britain, the opportunity was taken to watch Hellboy 2: The Golden Retriever.

In a no doubt rush to get some more cash from a franchise born from comic books, The film was released on Wednesday for all to see, laugh cry etc. And why not? As mentioned before on the tome of silliness, there hasn’t been really anything other than the Dark Kite to get excited about at the box office, and of the films to come out, the majority of them have been sequels, perhaps now finally bringing home the bacon of truth, which is that Hollywood has ran out of ideas.

So the reasons for watching Hellboy 2: The cash-in, were that a) the first film was actually rather good. 2) It looked one of the better films out at the current time, considering what else is out there right now and iii) It was a Saturday night. Aside from dancing like someone suffering from Motor Neuron disease, drinking till our eyes bleed or drugging an unsuspecting person to violate, what else can you do at that time?

So there you are. The reasons behind the choice have been laid bare, and just like Get Smart, the expectations for the film were not overly huge, again as a result for a lacklustre summer blockbuster fest.

One of first things to note is that all of the characters from the first film do make an appearance at some point, but not all return, which the reason behind that do explained away quickly and is as quickly forgotten. Even the dead can make a comeback, as John Hurt was there as Father explaining basically what was to come through the rest of the film in a handy flashback sequence.

So using that last flashback bit as a very bad way of linking sections of this critical dribble together, let’s reveal what it’s all about then. Some fairies and humans were being naughty, something happened which made someone either very angry that some fighting started.

A big bunch of robot things were built with a crown to control them and then lots of humans were massacred. The fairy that was controlling the robots at the time was upset for some reason and stopped the robots.

A truce was made, the control thing for the robots was split into three, some falling out happens with the fairies and then we get to present day where Luke Goss, the fairy who had the falling out earlier turns Greenpeace and goes ape over humanity’s actions. It wasn’t enough that he was angry at daddy in Blade 2, he was now angry here. Someone should get that man help.

Now we have the gripping tale of terror or silliness or whatever was coming, let’s cue lots of “oh my god bits”, Hellboy comes in and along with trusty Liz, the fish and some german bloke made of smoke spends time saving the day and for good measure, let’s throw in lots of love related things with a twist somewhere, I don’t know, there was on hold music buzzing in my head at the time.

David Hyde Pierce wasn’t around this time to provide the voice of the blue fish man, and upon seeing the film; it wasn’t a great push to see why. He probably took one look at the script and thought this was rubbish, or perhaps more harsh words to that effect.

And that’s the opinion you would tend to take away from watching the on-screen malaise, that it’s a small wonder how it lasts beyond 30 minutes.

The story is, well, there in places and then we have a load of monsters to fight, a great number of special effects, all of which were very larger than life, far more than what we saw before which kind of gave away the fact that a lot of money had been spent on the film’s effects and sets, to create a grander world perhaps than the one we saw before.

But all the while, whatever was trying to surface as love between people and the tragedy of loss, well sort of got lost in a mess that made little sense, even in a comic book world established in the first film, and that’s where the big disappointment comes from.

You can argue that the first film wasn’t exactly commiserate of Shakespeare and most would agree that. But it was an enjoyable experience, being introduced to the world of the big red man if we were not already familiar with it via the printed material read by kids along with Playboy and the Kays Catalogue.

We actually were sad at the death of John Hurt, and we didn’t want the Germans to win after all. But in this cinematic pile, you just end up wondering how far up its own arse it will finish.

The whole section with the troll market just came out of no-where, and how it fully fitted in, is anyone’s guess. The problem was that this lacked any real substance, just like Get Smart, but unlike Get Smart, it actually lacked a lot of charm and well anything which you would leave the theatre with joy and not the feeling that the movie business once again left a mess up your backside.

You can’t be all negative in such things, you always try and see the upside to anything, and one thing that cannot be condemned about this film, is seeing drunken people sing when upset. Other than that and the first scene with the young Hellboy, the rest you can write off.

I wish I could find more to say more about the film, to keep on looking for signs of the Hellboy I used to like, but regretfully, this is one of the times where the gift of waffle fails.

Such a shame, but then again, perhaps not to be unexpected in the current climate of output quality from Hollywood, and the huge quantity of money used to make films will not necessarily mean that you will get a fantastic film.