By Rick Bentley, McClatchy Newspapers

Director Guillermo del Toro’s masterful eye for constructing the weird and bizarre resulted in three Oscars for his 2006 film “Pan’s Labyrinth.” He creates cinema art that is as if Salvador Dali decided to paint like Roy Lichtenstein but with a Gothic influence. In other words, del Toro’s work is strange and surreal.

He brings that approach to “Hellboy II: The Golden Army.” The film sequel based on the graphic novel by Mike Mignola has Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and his buddies battling supernatural forces as members of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. There’s this daylight-challenged Prince (Luke Goss) and Princess (Anna Walton) at the center of a plot to use an ancient army to take over the world.

Don’t get too concerned with the story. It is a distant second to the look of this movie.

In “Pan’s Labyrinth” del Toro offered up his imaginative characters like pieces in a museum. There was no rush. Viewers could take their time to enjoy the detail and skill of each strange creation.

Universal Studios
Members of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, aquatic empath Abe (Doug Jones), Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and pyrokinetic Liz (Selma Blair), from left, prepare for duty in “Hellboy II: The Golden Army.”

Sadly, “Hellboy II” is visual overkill. It is like trying to see every display in the Louvre in just over two hours. There is no time to enjoy the work. That’s criminal. This movie is full of imaginative creations that will be missed if you blink.

Take, for example, a trip by Hellboy to the Troll Market. This creature menagerie is as if George Lucas had been able to make his cantina scene in “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” with all the money in the world. The artistry of the sequence gets crushed by the sheer volume of characters.

It would have helped if del Toro had spent just a little more time on the script. His screenplay continues to veer away from the original comic-book series, especially in the relationship between Hellboy and Liz (Selma Blair). The twist this time is forced and trite. You would think a person who can come up with a creature whose eyes are in its wings could imagine something a little more original for his characters to do.

The story and characters all seem incomplete. There is a new love angle for Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) that does little except to bring the movie to a grinding halt when Abe and Hellboy perform a duet of a Barry Manilow tune.

Even the big battle with the Golden Army ends before it begins. And the final plot twist could have been delivered much earlier.

The movie does not take away from del Toro’s artistic vision. A little self-control would have helped. But scenes from “Hellboy II” do make for an impressive coffee-table book. It just would have been nice to see the visual portion not be so distracting.