Hellboy Review

The first two Hellboy films by Guillermo del Toro have a cult following but financially were only modest successes, so the reboot button has been pressed for the 2019 film.

In the 6^th century King Arthur and Merlin were able to stop Nimue, the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich) from taking over England. To prevent Nimue from being a threat her body was cut into multiple parts and spread across the land. In the modern day Hellboy (David Harbour) is sent to England to assist the Osiris Club to hunt giants. He ends up being the one to stop forces trying to resurrect Nimue.

Guillermo del Toro had plans to make a third Hellboy film, but they never came to be. His proposed plans were expensive, and del Toro is a busy filmmaker – he has a long list of cancelled projects. Millennium Entertainment, a company that specialise in making mid-budget action films produced the reboot and Hellboy was given a $50 million budget, the lowest budget for a Hellboy film. And it shows. The reboot is a special-effects heavy with mediocre CGI work.

The Hellboy reboot was directed by Neil Marshall who on the surface seemed like a solid choice. He started his career in the horror genre, can delivery violent action, and best known for directing the Game of Thrones episodes “Blackwater” and “The Watchers on the Wall.” Hellboy is his first film in nine years and it was meant to be his comeback. But it turned out to be a troubled shoot.

The first controversy to affect the film was the casting of Ed Skrein as Ben Daimio – a character who’s Japanese-American in the comics. Skrein ended up stepping down from the role and Daniel Dae Kim being cast instead. The Wrap reported on all the production troubles which included Marshall and Harbour getting into arguments and producers firing Marshall’s long-time cinematographer in a powerplay.

Despite these problems some of Marshall’s vision shine through. The best example of this was when Hellboy meets the Baba Yaga in her home. It looked like Howl’s Moving Castle if it put through a horror filter. It was disturbing. A small scene where Nimue sitting on a sofa as detached body parts gave the film a bit of dark humour. There were some decent action scenes including one where Hellboy had to fight three giants at the same time. There was some invention in the camera work even if the special effects let these scenes down. Hopefully Marshall can recover and either go back to working on TV or make a lower budget film.

The producers were clearly influenced by the success of Deadpool and Logan – both showed R-rated comic book films can be profitable. And the film does offer gory delights. Despite the R-rated this versions Hellboy comes across as a film made by teenagers for teenagers. The problem is the excessive amount of swearing. The film starts with a voiceover saying “517 AD, known as the Dark Ages—and for fucking good reason.” It comes across as immature and a poor attempt at being edgy. The humour Hellboy comes across as a new version of Blade: Trinity. That is a comic-book adaptation films should avoid being like.

Hellboy is the latest film to follow a recent trend of using Arthurian legends. Transformers: The Last Knight and The Kid Who Would be King were modern set films that a villain or artefact from the Dark Ages becomes a threat again. The plot does mirror The Kid Who Would be King quite a bit.

The reboot does also bare quite a few similarities to the 2004 film. Both films show the Hellboy’s origins where the Nazis open a portal to hell, Hellboy questions where his loyalties should lie, and both films feature a prophecy where Hellboy could lead to the end of the world. The more things change the more they stay the same. The 2004 version of Hellboy was a more inventive film in its storytelling.

Hellboy was written by Andrew Cosby who is best known as a TV writer. Plus, the comic creator Mike Mignola and Aron Eli Coleite (Heroes, Star Trek: Discovery) did uncredited rewrites. And this shows in Hellboy’s plotting because it comes across as a series of episodes glued together.

The film was obviously mostly set in England. At times it comes across as unintentionally hilarious for an English audience. Sasha Lane as Alice and the Osiris Club were examples of this. The Osiris Club was basically an English gentleman’s club that was steeped in tradition. Lane is an American actress playing an English character and she was introduced by cooking Hellboy a traditional English breakfast and she may as well said ‘cor blimey governor.’

I will praise the screenplay for the little detail where the Osiris Club state Britain use to be filled with giants. This had to be a reference to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s The History of the Kings of Britain which claimed giants dominated Britain before humans arrived. It shows some literary knowledge from the writers.

Hellboy has an atrocious Rotten Tomatoes score and some critics have claimed it is one of the worst comic book films ever made. It’s not that bad, it’s not a Howard the Duck, Catwoman or Fantastic Four (2015). It’s just a mediocre film that wasted its potential.