Trailer of the Week 2: Return to Trailer of the Week

Isn't anyone sick of comic book movies yet? After Robert Downey Jr.'s definitive performance as America's greatest asshole, we should all be able to just stay home and ignore the cavalcade of childish nonsense epitomized by Hulk 2: Please Actually Watch This One and Batman 6: DidYouHearHeathLedgerDiedIKnowOhMyGod. And yet...there it is, singing its siren song from the front window of Powell's Books: the latest publication by Dark Horse Comics of onetime Portlander Mike Mignola's Hellboy. And on its cover, a helpful sticker, drawing one's attention to the following corporate synergy:
[youtube 9nvtszZfcqQ]
See, in the beginning, Mignola created Hellboy, and it was good. Then Guillermo del Toro turned it into the greatest movie ever about a big red demon with sawed-off horns who gets paid by the government in nachos to punch Nazis, shoot Lovecraftian monsters, and occasionally mutter, "Aw, crap." Then del Toro created Pan's Labyrinth and suddenly everyone knew his name. And what has he done with all that Oscar buzz and studio goodwill? He's given us another helping of nachos, is what he's done, and everybody should be damn grateful. The first Hellboy movie had to share a delicious marquee with The Passion of the Christ, and I might forgive moviegoers for following a higher calling. But Hellboy II will enjoy only a week at the box office before facing the Devil himself: a sulky, pointy-eared Christian Bale. If you forsake Hellboy for that tight-ass in tights, you know where you're going.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is rated PG-13 and opens July 11.