Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Guillermo del Toro’s 2008 film follows a prince who wants to break the truce between humans and the old peoples. It was the first production to shoot at Korda Studios, opened in 2007 at Etyek outside Budapest, and the Troll Market was built inside an abandoned limestone quarry forty five minutes away. Almost every vendor there is a suit, an animatronic or a prosthetic makeup. The golden army of the title is not: those soldiers, the tooth fairies and the forest elemental are digital. Johann Krauss’s helmet was planned as a computer effect, then built for real once the cost came in, and took two puppeteers to work. The voices changed too. Doug Jones speaks for Abe Sapien himself here, where David Hyde Pierce dubbed the part in the first film, and Seth MacFarlane took over Johann Krauss once del Toro decided Thomas Kretschmann’s voice did not sit with the suit’s mechanical sound. The film was nominated in the Makeup category at the 81st Academy Awards, for Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz; the award went to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. A good fit if the built creatures of the Troll Market are the show you came for. Not for anyone expecting the army itself to be handmade: the finale looks plainly different from the ninety minutes before it.