WHEN IT FIRST HIT theaters in 2004, Hellboy was something of a puzzle for audiences: No one quite knew what to make of the blood-red superhero with the devilish horns. Though not a massive flop, the film failed to equal its modest budget at the domestic box office. Yet here we are, four years later, with a new Hellboy film in cineplexes and an even larger budget than the first time around. Why?

Two things happened. The first was Hellboy's success on home video and cable television. Missed by most viewers the first time around, Hellboy's subtle humor, self-deprecating lug of a superhero, impressive creature design, and overall sense of fun have helped it hold up well on repeated viewings. If not quite a cult classic it has certainly developed a healthy following.

The second thing was the emergence of director Guillermo Del Toro as the hot new action/horror director. Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth was a huge success critically and commercially, netting 6 Oscar nominations (and 3 wins) in 2007. Audiences and critics were blown away by Del Toro's vision--the creature effects, set design, and the darkness of the fairy tale story at its heart were amazing--and Del Toro was tapped to take the reins of the Lord of the Rings franchise, replacing Peter Jackson as the director of The Hobbit.

With that sort of clout, and two growing name brands for a studio to capitalize, it's no wonder that Universal ordered a sequel. And watching Hellboy II: The Golden Army, it's easy to

This film felt like two hour-long action scenes separated by five minutes of character development. The plot is secondary to the visual spectacle, and isn't terribly interesting, but here it is. It seems that, millennia ago, humans lived alongside fantastic creatures such as elves and trolls and wood nymphs. Humans were greedy and aggressive, never satisfied with what they had. After waging war on the wood folk, the king of the elves decided to raise a "golden army"--4,900 indestructible mechanical monstrosities--and after a climactic battle in which the king's robot army slaughtered the human army, the king was wracked with grief and called for a truce, which the humans quickly accepted.

But the king's son, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), was unhappy with the truce and went into exile. It's now 2008, and he has decided to usurp his father and take control of the army, wreaking vengeance on the greedy humans who have pushed the mystical world underground and out of sight. Of course, only one man can stop this devilish elf: Hellboy (Ron Perlman), assisted by his girlfriend/fire manipulator Liz (Selma Blair) and water-breathing fish-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones).

This plot, or lack thereof, is the perfect conveyance for mindless action: Hardly five minutes go by without someone punching somebody in the face, or cutting someone's legs off, or blowing up buildings. And though the battle scenes look spectacular, they feel hollow. In Hellboy, the characters seemed to be people with real lives and real problems who, incidentally, also battle paranormal activity on the side. In Hellboy II the equation is reversed: These are characters who spend their time whaling on bad guys and, occasionally, deal with personal complications.