Buy it... if you seek a return by Danny Elfman to his days of gothic melodrama, even if the consistency of thematic resonance isn't quite the same.

Avoid it... if you demand firm connections to Marco Beltrami's entertaining score for Hellboy.

Elfman

Hellboy II: The Golden Army: (Danny Elfman) Director Guillermo del Toro returns to the world of Hellboy for his second adventure in four years, following the success of Hellboy with a sequel that cranks up the exotic locations and action sequences to the next level. With the background of the superheroes established in the first film, Hellboy II: The Golden Army takes the same group of misfits under the protection of the FBI (minus the dorky human agent from the first tale) and progresses their narratives into a conflict with the nastiest creatures of the fantasy world, ones just a single artifact away from being unleashed on humanity. The broken truce between humans and the monsters of the night, large and small, gives del Toro the opportunity to do what he does best: dazzle us with amazing visuals of underworlds with giant turning gears (once again) and bizarre creatures that Hellboy must contend with. Critical response to the sequel has been more positive than with the first film, though a few noteworthy holes in the plot have been mentioned. One member of the Hellboy crew who wanted to return for the sequel (but was never asked) was Marco Beltrami, who wrote a stirring score with a memorable theme for that production. Instead, del Toro hired Danny Elfman, still the master of the superhero genre in the Digital Age, to start completely over. Elfman, after several years of less than stellar production, has exploded in 2008 with three remarkable scores in the first half of the year alone. His Philip Glass-like work for Standard Operating Procedure and edgy crossover score for Wanted are impressive in their own ways, but Hellboy II is the kind of score that longtime Elfman collectors will appreciate the most. It's massively orchestral and choral, with rowdy action sequences and beautiful interludes, complimented by several character and location cues of zany instrumentation and rhythm. It even, for good measure, concludes the first statement of the title theme with a big gong hit, raising memories of Elfman's first and best superhero score, Batman.

Enthusiasts of the Hellboy franchise will likely be disappointed that none of the traits of Beltrami's score carry over; the cool thumping of the electric bass rhythm in the credits and the well-established title theme are absent. In fact, Elfman does not stray often into Men in Black territory and utilize the electronics you might expect. Movie critic Roger Ebert even compared the action music in Hellboy II to John Williams' Star Wars, a film that gets lots of mentioning in relation to this del Toro's vision because of similar portrayals of strange creatures. That comparison is not really accurate from a pure film music standpoint, for while Elfman does utilize a few moments of classic romanticism in his orchestral outbursts, most of his work is firmly rooted in the gothic sound that he used at the start of his career. That should come as a pleasant surprise for fans of the composer. Indeed, Hellboy II is, in its vast majority, a throwback score to the glory days of Elfman's honeymoon with Hollywood. There are extended sequences of harmony and choir that pull at the same sentimental strings, with over ten minutes of such material being the first uninterrupted performances of pretty Elfman melancholy since The Family Man in 2000. Between "The Last Elemental" and the first half of "Finale" alone, the album for Hellboy II will likely be worth the price for fans of this sound. A few of the action cues explode with complex structures from Sleepy Hollow, offering generally the same instrumentation as well. Thematically, Elfman explores several interesting lines throughout the score, led by a repeating four-note motif that ominously sets the stage in "Hellboy II Titles." A forceful march on brass serves as a decent villain's piece, on best display in the latter half of "In the Army Chamber." Lighter themes of lament (and perhaps a love theme for Red and Liz somewhere in there as well) are treated with Elfman's usual sense for the darkly melodramatic, though the soft woodwind and piano performances in "A Link," "A Choice," and "A Big Decision" aren't quite as deep as Elfman can get.

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Fans will inevitably compare the Beltrami and Elfman scores, and being that they both exist in the franchise, there is merit to such discussion. But they succeed for different reasons. Beltrami played more strongly upon the sarcastic humor of Hellboy and the general style of coolness he exudes. Elfman does the same to a lesser extent, but the major difference between the two scores is thematic continuity. Beltrami's catchy title theme for the first film wasn't outstanding, but it was extremely consistent in its straightforward employment. In Elfman's score, you hear many singular highlights that form a whole based on tone rather than structure. There are a couple of distinct weaknesses to Elfman's work for Hellboy II, and indeed one of them is the clarity of the thematic development. There are so many rich melodic ideas in Hellboy II that it's quite disappointing that, at least on album, they don't really come together in the end. The "Finale" even masks the primary theme by overlapping its four-note progression in layers that deny listeners the kind of clarity in sendoff that the Batman and Spider-Man scores always exhibited. The other detraction in Hellboy II is Elfman's return to pure silliness in several cues, letting rip with Mars Attacks! style of loungey jazz and even a theremin in "Hallway Cruise," a Nightbreed revisit in the quirky, bombastic rhythms of "A Troll Market," a totally bizarre Hindu-sounding source piece in the latter half of "Finale" (a really awful way to end the album even though it cleverly states some thematic material from the rest of the score), and a few token high-range "la-la" vocals from the earliest days of his career. Still, even with these detractions comes the comfort of knowing that each of these is clearly within Elfman's realm of creativity, so an avid fan of the composer will find nothing completely odd in Hellboy II. The texture of the score is a compensating highlight, with very deep male choral work and an occasional electric guitar sticking to memory. Overall, Hellboy II is indeed a return to Elfman's often beautiful gothic tendencies, but don't expect it to resonate with the same success as his best music from "the good ole' days." ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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