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.)

And then there’s that other audience that might be interested in this—fans of director Guillermo del Toro’s arthouse movies like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone. But this is del Toro in his other, populist mode. If there’s a political subtext to a movie about wise-cracking mutants battling an ancient army led by a prince and princess who look like the Nelson brothers after a decade on the crack pipe, I missed it. Hellboy II has better jokes than Hancock, a fun performance from Ron Perlman in the title role, and a lot of monsters re-used from other del Toro movies. It’s got about a week to make a profit before The Dark Knight blows it out of the water. (By the way, any parents thinking of taking young children to see this: You can forget about ever telling them that the Tooth Fairy will come visit them when they sleep, if that’s a popular story in your household.)

—m. faust