Hellboy II: the golden army (12A
****
BY DAMON SMITH

THE sequel to Guillermo del Toro's 2004 fantasy, based on Mike Mignola's comics series, is every bit as fast and furious as its predecessor, melding dazzling production design with wry humour and explosive action sequences.

Having sketched the origins of the characters in the first film, del Toro is given free rein here to let his imagination run amok, concocting a dark and bloody fairy-tale full of trolls, goblins and a nine feet tall Angel Of Death.

The writer-director's distinctive visual style, celebrated with three Academy Awards for Pan's Labyrinth, is very much in evidence, including a swarm of voracious tooth fairies, who crave calcium and eagerly devour human flesh to extract tasty molars from gums.
Children should seriously think twice about putting milk teeth under their pillow.

The clandestine Bureau for Paranormal Research and Development is struggling to keep Hellboy (Ron Perlman) hidden from prying eyes.
After a visit to an Upper East Side auction house, Hellboy and his cohorts Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) are propelled into the media spotlight, to the chagrin of BPRD chief Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor).

Meanwhile, disgruntled prince of the underworld, Nuada Silverlance (Luke Goss), grows resentful of the wasteful humans.

He spearheads a revolution, searching for three shards of his father's ancient gold crown, which controls The Golden Army: unstoppable fighting machines created by the goblins.

The final piece of the crown is in the possession of Nuada's twin, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), but she does not share his thirst for world domination.

Nuala seeks refuge with the BPRD but Hellboy's famous 'Big Baby' shotgun is no match for Nuada as he storms bureau headquarters and engineers his diabolical scheme.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a triumph of design.

The Troll Market, secreted beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, is festooned with weird and wonderful creatures of all shapes and sizes and there is a jaw-dropping fight between the horny hero and a gargantuan Elemental forest creature on a Manhattan street corner.

Yet there is much more to del Toro's film than impeccable style.
Perlman carries off his role with gusto, bringing out the humour of his reluctant saviour from beneath the prosthetic make-up as Hellboy contends with so-called domestic bliss ("I would die for her . . . but she wants me to do the dishes!")

Jones also comes to the fore as a sensitive soul experiencing love for the first time.

If there is a weak link it's Goss, who fails to convey the rage and frustration of his misguided usurper.

The relationship between the cigar-chomping, kitten-loving hero and girlfriend Liz moves in unexpected directions, culminating in a life or death choice that poses tantalising questions for the future.
"It is his destiny to bring about the destruction of the Earth. Not now, not tomorrow, but soon enough. Knowing that, you still want him to live?" wonders The Angel Of Death.

Absolutely.

Kumble's caper runs out of steam
College Road Trip (U)
*
BY DAMON SMITH

IF it weren't drizzled in so much emotional syrup that you can almost feel your teeth rotting in your gums, Roger Kumble's comedy might be a little creepy.

The central character is a police chief whose idea of fatherly love is to publicly smother his teenage daughter with hugs and kisses to ward off potential boyfriends.

He has a photograph of his little girl beside the bed, in a frame adorned with hearts and a hand scrawled I LOVE YOU DAD, and the living room cupboard heaves with countless videotapes of every cutesy second of her formative years.

In any other film, his obsession would warrant a telephone call to child protection services.

In College Road Trip, however, the father's inability to let go of his flesh and blood is merely a starting point for a tiresome and achingly predictable journey of self-discovery. En route, there are tears, karaoke, a flying pig and confessions of the heart worthy of the inside of a cheap greetings card: "Dads don't know everything. We just do the best we can."

In the case of Kumble's film, his best just isn't good enough, not by a long way.

James Porter (Martin Lawrence) is a control freak, who has always wrapped his daughter Melanie (Raven-Symone) in cotton wool.

Seventeen-year-old Melanie has her heart set on Georgetown, hundreds of miles away in Washington, DC. She lands an interview and James insists on driving his daughter to the campus.

When the wheels quite literally come off their road trip, the Porters rely on maniacally cheerful Doug Greenhut (Donny Osmond) and his ultra-perky daughter Wendy (Molly Ephraim) to complete their adventure.
College Road Trip continues Lawrence's unbroken run of flops.

SOMERS TOWN (12A)
BY DAMON SMITH

SHANE Meadows' new film is a companion piece to This Is England, crafting another coming-of-age tale, this time set against the backdrop of the titular area of central London buffered by Euston and King's Cross mainline railway stations.

Sixteen-year-old runaway Tommo (Thomas Turgoose) arrives in the capital with a bag of clothes and a little cash to his name.

Mugged for his belongings, he wanders the streets begging for food and shelter, eventually finding a friend in Polish immigrant Marek (Piotr Jagiello), whose father Marius (Ireneusz Czop) is a labourer on the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras.

Marek agrees to hide Tommo in the cramped flat he shares with Marius, and the two boys become unlikely buddies, even harbouring a crush on the same French waitress (Elisa Lasowski).

However, Tommo cannot live unseen forever in the apartment, forcing the youngster to make hard choices about his future.

Smart's not quite bright enough to save the world

Get Smart (12A)
**
BY DAMON SMITH

BASED on a madcap 60s television series created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart is a comic caper about an accident-prone yet sensitive secret agent who might just be mankind's last, great hope.

James Bond and Jason Bourne need not fear: if Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) does save the world, it is the result of pluck and good fortune rather than a perfectly conceived and executed plan.

Carell embraces the film's brand of unabashed silliness without restraint.

Whether he's body popping and pirouetting between the laser beams of a security system or attempting to unlock handcuffs using an ingenious mini-harpoon (the darts from which end up lodged in every part of his anatomy), the leading man is a lovable fool.

Carell catalyses a pleasing screen chemistry with Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada), who has nothing to do apart from try to keep a straight face as her co-star goofs into and out of trouble.
Terence Stamp pays his mortgage for a couple of months as the lifeless, pantomime arch-villain, whose ridiculously theatrical scheme to cause an explosion using Beethoven's Ode To Joy as a trigger is doomed to failure.

Maxwell Smart is a surveillance expert for secret US agency CONTROL, monitoring conversations in the Russian agency KAOS. He is keen to prove his worth in the field but the chief (Alan Arkin) values Maxwell's talents too much to let him stray from headquarters.

"You're not promoting me because I'm too good at my job?" asks Maxwell.
When the secret identities of CONTROL's operatives around the world are compromised, the chief has little choice but to promote Maxwell and to dispatch the newly re-christened Agent 86 to Russia under the guidance of feisty mentor Agent 99 (Hathaway) to track down criminal mastermind Siegfried (Stamp).

With geeks Bruce (Masi Oka) and Lloyd (Nate Torrence) providing technical backup and buff Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson) providing additional muscle, Agents 86 and 99 uncover a dastardly plot to kill the American president (James Caan) during a televised concert. Get Smart incorporates many familiar characters and gizmos from the TV series, including the Cone Of Silence, which allows CONTROL operatives to talk to one another without being overheard. Of course here, the Cone malfunctions with predictably embarrassing consequences.

Director Peter Segal focuses too intently on the big action scenes rather than the slapstick, burdening the film with a split personality, which screenwriters Tom J Astle and Matt Ember are unable to resolve.
Supporting performances are largely forgettable and Bill Murray shines in a brief cameo as stir crazy Agent 13, who is stuck inside a tree.
Barking mad - pity the rest of Segal's film doesn't follow suit.