Bakelite, you may or may not be interested in knowing, was “the first truly synthetic resin, phenol formaldehyde, or phenolic, developed by the German chemist Leo Baekeland and patented in 1907,” according to Eric Knowles in his book, Discovering Antiques. In plainer terms, it was the first successful plastic, widely employed in fashioning jewelry, furniture and decorative objects, particularly in Art Deco designs.

There are audiences who just like to look at big special-effects-driven movies, and there are audiences who like to understand what’s going on. Those of you in the former category will probably enjoy this sequel to the 2004 movie that tanked at the US box office but did good business overseas and on home video: It’s loaded from stem to stern with trolls, demons, mutants, and everything else that a big studio budget can buy. Those of you in the latter group, however, are out of luck, unless you’re readers of the comic book series on which Hellboy is based. At the very least you’ll need to remember the first movie, none of whose sketchy backstory is repeated here. (I never did get why Hellboy was fighting on the side of good, or at least the US government, if he is the literal son of Satan, unless you’re making an extreme case about nurture vs. nature.)