Hellboy was a decent movie that I believe most moviegoers will enjoy watching. For me, Hellboy failed to live up to the quality of the first two installments. It wasn’t as though it was boring. It just wasn’t that great.
DIRECTION
Neil Marshall directed this reboot of Hellboy. By looking at his credentials, this is his directorial debut. He last directed two episodes for Lost in Space for Netflix. To say the least, he had big shoes to fill, as the original director, Guillermo Del Toro, did a standout job on the first two. I am not sure why the studio risked hundreds of millions of dollars on someone who had not proved to be a great movie director. It’s equivalent of asking a dude who was great at framing houses to build the next skyscraper.
The script was very weak, and I’ll get into that later. Neil Marshall did not author the script, and I am not sure how much freedom he was given on rewrites, but ultimately, the buck stops at the chair of the director, and he must take the blame for not delivering a great movie.
The characters were flat and lacked depth, and everyone basically had the same fighting style, which was a mixture of boxing and gun shooting. The fights were well shot and edited. Which is about the only plus.
GRADE: D
ACTING
David Harbour, known for his role in Stranger Things, plays Hellboy. The original was played by Ron Perlman, a name that needs no introduction. David Harbour, given the
Milla Jovovich played The Blood Queen and looked as though she didn’t age a day. She didn’t have an opportunity to fly around doing martial arts kicks. Jovovich actually had to act, and she did a great job.
Ian McShane played Professor Broom and effortlessly pulled off the character he has always been typecast for, which is the authoritarian voice of reason.
Every actor in this movie did a great job.
GRADE: A
THE SCRIPT
It all comes down to the script. It always does. In this case, the screenplay just wasn’t a good enough piece of meat to work with. No amount of ingredients could fix this failure.
The movie actually started out very strong and on the right foot, and I thought I was in for a great ride. The integration of King Arthur was awesome. There were two very memorable fight scenes: one in the opening where Hellboy accidentally ended up killing his partner who turned into a vampire, and then a second scene, where he was ambushed by a league of humans, who were killers of giants. But these two scenes didn’t propel the story forward, and if you edited them out of the script, the entire movie could have easily stayed the same.
Did Hellboy learn anything new? Gain a new skill? Find a new clue? Traumatize him? Nope. Those two scenes were pretty much useless.
The 2nd fight scene ended with Hellboy collapsing, then being saved by Alice, a young girl with psychic powers. How she saved him, no one knows. The next scene, Hellboy’s new team is assembled and we’re onto the 2nd Act.
And that’s your 1st turning point. Talk about weak. The 1st turning point is supposed to capsize your heroes world. That doesn’t happen here. His team just assembles and gets to work.
Because the 1st turning point was as weak as the nerds in my high school who couldn’t do one pull-up, the entire 2nd Act dragged.
The characters didn’t help either.
Let’s start with Hellboy, who was pretty much two-dimensional. Other than being an enthusiastic whiner with major daddy issues, he really wasn’t much more. When comparing the “reboot Hellboy” to the old, Perlman’s Hellboy had a lot more depth. He wanted to be part of society, had his favorite TV shows, foods, he loved cats, he had a love interest, he was gonna be a father.
Then there’s Hellboy’s superhero team, which consisted of some type of “cougar werewolf” and that Alice girl who had cheesy weak psychic powers. Perlman’s Hellboy had a much more interesting team, with stronger powers. There was that walking blue guppie that was really smart, the scientist who was a gas and used a robot to operate in the world, then there was his love interest who was a human torch. It was just a lot more interesting.
What really made my skin crawl was the missed opportunities in the final act. Hellboy wields Excalibur, grows his horns, and unleashes demons from hell. And instead of fighting these incredibly evil-looking creatures, who are just killing humans left and right, we are treated to talkfest between The Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich) and his father.
Talk-talk-talk-talk-talk.
How about some epic fight scenes now that Hellboy is a badass and can maybe use the powers of Satan to work against the underworld. Maybe he can pull a Ghost Rider thing, right? Take the curse, own it, and use it for good? That’s also a Silver Surfer thing too.
Does any of that happen?
Nope.
We get more talking.
This time from his deceased father. If he’s not getting nagged to death by The Blood Queen he’s getting lectured by his dead father on how he believes in him.
That’s your climatic ending. Hellboy, resolving his daddy issues. So, you’re telling me Dr. Phil should have been there.
Hellboy is either too weak to take on The Blood Queen, or too strong to do anything except listen.
Sigh.
GRADE: D
FINAL DEEP THOUGHTS
Like I mentioned in the beginning, Hellboy wasn’t a bad movie, it just wasn’t as good as the first two. And that final scene – oh, horrible.
The creatures in this movie look incredible. They were flat out scary – stuff nightmares are made out of.
Taking your children to Hellboy – a definite no. It’s very bloody and gruesome.
If you’re not critical on the story, you may actually enjoy this movie. but I am.
FINAL GRADE: C+
Steve Young
