sequel to his 2004 working-class superhero movie Hellboy and his Oscar-winning 2006 masterpiece, "Pan's Labyrinth," Director Guillermo Del Toro has outdone himself in both absurd humor and wild imagination.

"The Golden Army" ostensibly follows the adventures of that the stogie-sucking demon of a crime fighter (once again played with anti-hero panache by Ron Perlman) - who's tough on the outside but tender underneath, - and his friends, the aquatic Abe Sapien and the flaming Liz Sherman, all super-secret government agents. They hunt wayward ghosts, goblins and ghoulies up and down the Eastern Seaboard, when they aren't battling personal problems.

Though Hellboy II caters to the fanboy crowd that wants to see killer monster fights, Del Toro and Mike Mignola, on whose comic book the Hellboy films are based, have expanded their scope to encompass a war against humanity by a race of underworld creatures led by Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), who needs the third piece of a crown to bring to life the invincible Golden Army.

The Golden Army follows the adventures of that cigar-chomping superhero

Unfortunately for Nuada, his sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), has the missing piece and doesn't plan to let him realize his evil intentions. As Nuada plots his takeover, Hellboy is trying to get used to life with his main pyrokinetic squeeze, Liz (Selma Blair), whose pyrokinetic abilities don't match the seeming lack of warmth in their relationship. Bureaucratic boob Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) is still trying to keep the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, of which Hellboy, Liz and Abe are members, a secret.

To Earth, Water and Fire, the movie now adds Air -- or protoplasm, at least, in the shape of the shape-shifting Johann Krauss. And then it gives the team a new challenge, in the form of a domesticated devil hulk and his superfreak comrades: The Paranormal Research and Defense team is basically a wilder version of the X-Men crew or the Fantastic Four, but with an oversize grandeur.

Yes, indeed. Time to save the world again: long ago, an invincible army is buried away when a hidden, ancient race builds a truce with humans. It’s not meant to last and a disgruntled prince with killer sword skills (Luke Goss) seeks to reactivate the army and destroy the humans. Now, Hellboy and his team of heroes must stop the powers of darkness from unleashing the Golden Army, an indestructible force of wind-up clockwork people that lurch forward on springs and gears

Doug Jones returns as Abe, the turquoise-tinted fish-man with keen intuition and a taste for Vivaldi. The brainy, watery Abe has Doug Jones replacing David Hyde Pierce from Hellboy. Jeffrey Tambor again plays the jittery bureaucrat who runs the operation, and the vaporous Teutonic boss is amusingly voiced by Seth McFarlane.

The visuals are the star, of course. The creature and makeup effects by Mike Elizalde ("Men in Black") are brilliant. But as freaky and amusing as it is, this sequel wouldn't be nearly as much fun without Ron Perlman who handles Hellboy's gruff charm and outsider angst with equal parts campy humor and heartfelt charm.

Perlman, with plenty of help from Del Toro, makes Hellboy the most dynamic superhero of the summer. With Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Del Toro has simply given us the most delightfully idiosyncratic action fantasy of the summer.