Movie Review: Hellboy

The remake no one wanted

The Concept:

First thing first. I am a huge fan of Hellboy. I would go as far and say I am a fanboy of this franchise. Not because of the comic, the previous 2 installments of the franchise helmed by Ron Perlman was the perfect combination of action, comedy and just epic film making by Guillmero Del Toro.

Directed by Neil Marshall, written by Andrew Cosby and Mike Mignola (the creator of Hellboy), this installment is as questionable as the taco bell fart you shouldn't have attempted. I almost felt like this was a bad April Fools joke that was not just played on the audience, but the cast themselves. It is best compared to the Ryan Reynold’s installment of Green Lantern. And like that, it will become the butt end of comic book jokes till the end of time.

The story, which gets very convoluted, directionless, and to say poorly written are merely understatement. I don’t want to explain all the plot holes the size of the Grand Canyon throughout this film, but it’s like that horrible 20 car pile up, you need to see it, to believe it. Even IMDB didn’t want to go past the generic level of explanation of story. “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.”

As of this writing the Tomatometer had it at 15%, Metacritic was at 31% and IMDB was at 5.4/10.

The film comes ill equipped with a 50 million dollar budget, and it clearly shows by the very low scores across the rating sites. 15% on Rotten Tomatoes? Almost a contender for Manos: Hands of Fate(7%) for the crown of the worst film of all time. It is mathematically possible. The film only made 12 million on opening weekend, so there's that.

The Cast:

I get it. They cast David Harbour as Hellboy because of his size and the fact he is on a hot streak since Stranger Things. I wasn’t completely against the casting, but he aint Ron Perlman. Like RDJ with Ironman, Pearlman was made to be Hellboy and vice versa.

They add Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) as the main villain, Ian McShane as Hellboy’s father and a couple of forgettable supporting actors that really have no relevance to anything.

Maybe they should have spent more money on a bigger cast maybe? It was nice that Thomas Haden Church was in the film for like 5 minutes, randomly. And we saw the original characters/villains from the previous films but that’s it.

The Recap:

The good:

• I literally have nothing good to say about this film.

The bad:

• Comedy was misplaced and just poorly executed

• The story, just when you thought it couldn’t get more outlandish, it heard you complain and yelled back “Challenge accepted.” Even Excalibur (the damn sword) made multiple appearances

• As stated earlier, the budget was painfully obvious. The CGI was as poorly expected as a bad “C” movie. I half expected Steven Seagal or Steve Guttenberg to show up on set while battling lava covered tarantulas and stopping oil spills.

• The soundtrack was absolute garbage. The trailer made you feel like it would have a Guardians of the Galaxy style tie in with music. Not so much.

• The gore(as amazing as it was) couldn’t be taken seriously because of how hokey and poor the film was.

Things that stood out:

That parents/grandparents should do research of what film they take their youngings too. Clearly a 18A film, from all the swearing, gore and side boob that an adolescent team would love. Not sure the two 8 year old’s sitting behind us should be seeing it. But they definitely got an education in some things today.

Why we should watch or not watch it:

As I avoided the previous point by talking about something else entirely, I will say this. I have never given anything less than a .5 star out of 5 until this film. Congrats Hellboy, you shamelessly earned this score. Now go join the other poorly executed comic movies ad fade away. Such films as:

• Daredevil(film)

• Elektra

• Catwoman

• Green Latern

• The Original 90’s Fantastic Four movie

• The Last Fantastic Four movie

• Any of the Fantastic Four films

• Justice League

• Batman and Robin

• Italian Spiderman

• Spiderman 3

• Superman returns

• Every Darkman film after the first one

And so on. You get the point.

Rating: .25 / 5 Stars

#hellboy #davidharbour #ronpearlman #imagecomics #reb