Hello!
And welcome to a review of a movie that I heard so much bad stuff about that it took me its whole theatre runtime to finally watch it. This is Hellboy on the last day that it’s playing in my local theatre!
IMDb summary: Based on the graphic novels by Mike Mignola, Hellboy, caught between the worlds of the supernatural and human, battles an ancient sorceress bent on revenge.
- Hellboy was written by Andrew Cosby and directed by Neil Marshall. Cosby is both a comic book writer and a screenwriter, while Marshall is best know for directing some of the most amazing Game Of Thrones’s episodes. The 2019 movie is not only a comic book adaptation but a reboot of the previous early 00s adaptation – one that I really enjoyed. Sadly, I cannot say the same about this one.
- A lot of the faults with the movie are rooted in its script. Fantasy writing is not an easy thing: when done right it makes the viewer believe in the craziest things. When done like it was in Hellboy, it just comes across as illogical and stupid. Additionally, Hellboy also commits the sins that would break any movie: it has too many characters, too much-forced exposition, and too many steps in its plot (it feels episodic and choppy – maybe better as a TV series). It also has a hidden King Arthur movie within cause Hollywood just love making those (in actual King Arthur films and others, like Transformers 6).
- Hellboy has a plethora of action which would be quite good if it wasn’t trying so hard to be edgy and brutal. The film goes for cheap gory horror and I guess it delivers on that front. However, the movie is not better because of that achievement. In addition to nasty but still fake looking (some awful CGI is on display in this film) action, Hellboy also makes use of swear words that are just there to justify its R rating rather than to tell us something about the characters that use them. Hellboy also tries to tell the viewer how cool it is by having a rock-y score which is one thing I’ll let slide just because I did like the soundtrack separately from the picture.
- Hellboy features some scenes of set up for the future and also has a mid-credits stinger. That scene is just wishful thinking on par of the filmmakers: both wishful thinking in terms of expecting the viewers to be not bored enough to sit through the credits and for anyone to care about the sequel. And that sequel is never happening – the rotten tomatoes score and the box office made sure of that.
- Hellboy’s cast is not bad, its just too big. Stranger Things’s David Harbour is good and deals well with acting with so much makeup. Ian McShane is good too but it is him so are we really surprised? I also really enjoyed Daniel Dae Kim’s performance. The rest were so replaceable including Mila Jovovich who is just proving everyone that she will never do anything better than a B actioner (if Residential Evil is even a B level movie rather than D. Oh The Fifth Element times, how far gone they are).
In short, Hellboy is not worthy of attention (didn’t get any either) and forgettable.
Rate: 2/5
Trailer: Hellboy trailer
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