And despite the fact that he was big, red, cranky, and hot-headed, there was that wonderful love story with Liz, the fire starter.

It was the sort of thing that only the minds of Mike Mignola and Guillermo del Toro could have dreamed up together.

As for that whole "leaves you wanting more" element? Director Del Toro clearly knew there was more he could mine in the theatrical world he'd created in the first Hellboy, so he revisited it with Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The movie is a grand achievement as far as filmmaking and -- even better -- mythmaking. No one, after all, can bring fanciful worlds and dimensions to life like del Toro (the man brought us Pan's Labyrinth, after all).

But ultimately, the movie shows us that lightning -- or, in this case, blue fire -- doesn't always strike twice. Because while it is superior in craft to nearly any superhero movie that you're likely to see, it can't quite recapture the magic of that first film.

This second film picks up where the first one left off. We play quick catch-up as the movie introduces new audiences to the goings-on. We learn who Hellboy is and meet all of his friends. We learn the importance of the Professor, and that Agent Myers was sent to Antarctica. We also get a fairytale -- as told to a young Hellboy by the Professor -- about the king of a magical world who created a golden army to fight humans. Filled with remorse, he shut down the army, but his son vowed to bring it back one day.

We also learn that Liz has a little secret she's not sharing with her live-in beau Hellboy, but Abe figures it out and almost spills the beans. And we're introduced to Johann Kraus, who joins the team at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Jeffrey Tambor is back in his role as Manning, who leads the bureau. He's funnier this time around than in the first movie, in which the role allowed for considerably less humor. It seems out of character at first, especially if you're used to the previous, more serious Manning incarnation, but it's actually a much better choice for both Tambor and the character.

Before Manning can say, "Hellboy, stay out of the public eye," the prince is back and attempting to get the golden army back together. It all plays out around this main plot thread, with tangential subplots involving Liz struggling with her feelings for Hellboy, Hellboy struggling with his feelings for humans, and Abe falling for a woman.

There are some funny moments, but they sort of get lost in the more serious stuff and the complicated mythology Del Toro has created. That mythology is this movie's greatest strength and its biggest liability. It is both beautiful and scary; you'll want to soak it all in but also cover your eyes. Ultimately, though, it's what turns this movie into more of an epic fairytale than either a superhero movie or a strict comic book adaptation. That's a plus: it brings the beauty and sadness (the bad guys make some of the greatest points in the film about humanity and how we treat our earth and other beings) that Del Toro offered up in Pan's Labyrinth to bear on a vehicle that's much more mainstream. But it's also going to turn off some folks who come to this movie looking for a run-of-the-mill sequel.

As far as craft and story and mythmaking, it's a far superior movie to the first one. But being better in that regard is sort of what makes it less magical overall: It's more finely tuned, honed, and perfected; but those aren't the qualities most of us will be looking for in a Hellboy sequel. We'll be struggling to find the humor and brute strength under all those beautiful, complicated layers.