You’re going to have to trust me when I tell you that you wouldn’t have liked it at my secondary school. Here’s a snippet of the school song:
‘Where the iron heart of England throbs
Beneath its sombre robe
Stands a school whose sons have made her
Great and famous round the globe’
Note the word ’sombre’, an important clue as to the school’s values and character. Oh, and where the ‘iron heart of England’ throbbed was Birmingham.

An institution designed for turning out interchangeable middle managers, the school was nevertheless troubled by a few creative souls who didn’t quite fit in. Often, these kids blossomed under the guidance of a brilliant art teacher, Mr Appleby. One of them had a thing for painting rock band logos: this was back in the 70s, when bands like Rainbow and Whitesnake had proper logos.

Anyway, one day my rucksack went missing, and I didn’t find it until it was time to go home. Only, now it was emblazoned with a vibrant flame-coloured Kiss logo. I hadn’t heard any Kiss at that point, and haven’t heard much since, but damn if those guys don’t have the visual side of their act down to a fine art. Seeing their red-yellow name writ large on my dull blue-grey rucksack gave me a thrill of sorts, but at the same time I wondered what the point of it all was, and whether I’d be in some sort of trouble.

I bring this to mind having seen the latest installment of the adventures of Hellboy. Under the guidance of Guillermo del Toro, the first part was a fantastic romp, that brought Mike Mignola’s sparky comic creation to ebullient screen life. OK, so it was just a lark, without the depth of imagination that del Toro demonstrated in the truly beautiful Pan’s Labyrinth, but it was heaps of fun and showed real vitality up to an underwhelming ending — the clockwork Nazi was much more interesting than the characterless CGI beast at the film’s climax.

Hellboy 2, sadly, is a real disappointment. And the responsibility is clearly in del Toro’s court. In much the same way that my rucksack was vandalised by an artist with no real focus for his talents, Hellboy 2 is spoiled by a tiresomely abundant display of del Toro’s visual talents, and loses any sense of the leaner style Mike Mignola brings to Hellboy. Let’s remember, Hellboy is Mignola’s creation. A bit of artistic licence is fine, but del Toro has frankly spraypainted the world that Mignola devised, overpainting it with stuff that has no place there.

We know that del Toro has an amazing visual imagination. But much of Hellboy 2 is a peacock display of that flair with no sense of discipline, restraint, or appropriateness. If I see a monster with its eyes somewhere other than its head once more I swear I shall scream: del Toro’s imagination is compulsive, with tics that become tiresome on repetition. Used judiciously — see Pan’s Labyrinth once again — his fertile visual flair is astonishing; here it’s like being assaulted by someone with an arty form of Tourette’s.

You’ll note I haven’t said much about the story. There is a good reason for this. The story functions basically as a means of the characters progressing from Location A to Location B, there to pick up a Plot Token that will enable them to proceed to Location C, each location peopled by beings more fabulous than the ones before. No emotional engagement, just visual fireworks. And like the firework displays that your uncle had, when he’d been paid a bonus and wanted to impress the neighbours, there’s only so much pyrotechnics you can take.