Now that I finished my Saturday morning protein shake and bowl of cereal because I'm a large man-child, let's get this under way. Quick disclaimer, most of my Hellboy knowledge comes from the old movies, the animated ones, and very few comics. I am by no means a masterful user of Hellboy, but since my first exposure with the Perlman movies, I loved the character.
Synopsis
David Harbour stars as the titular character, Hellboy. This is a total reboot, not a continuation. we are starting from scratch here, people. Movie opens up in a cringe kind of story telling scene of the first war of the Blood Queen, played by Milla Jovovich, where she is dismembered and sealed away by King Arthur and Merlin. Now someone is trying to bring the Blood Queen back and bring forth the destruction of the world so monsters may rule. It is up to the BPRD and Hellboy to stop the Blood Queen and prevent the destruction of the human race.
Pros
Special Effects: I honestly can't find many pros in this movie. The special effects for this movie and the costume designs weren't actually that bad most of the time. I thought David Harbour looked good in the make up. They had a pig like character (for all intents and purposes he was Bebop) that looked pretty good, you can see his emotions on the CGI really well and he was pretty fluid as a character. Definitely didn't look life-like, but he looked good, and the actor and voice really fit the character. There was a fight with some of these giants, and that fight I feel is hit or miss, but probably the best fight in the whole movie. And we also had Baba Yaga, who provided one of the most entertaining scenes in the whole movie, and she was definitely one of the better characters, despite having limited screen time. And the movie earned its R-rating, people were getting their faces ripped off, eyes gouged out, body parts being thrown from shadow silhouettes and splattering across the walls. Some not as good. Oh, and remember the big demons smashing through bridges and stuff from the trailers? Yeah, they looked good, but the length of them in the trailer was the length of time they were in the movie, except add 30 seconds. And Demon King Hellboy looked sick.
Alice: Alice is a psychic medium in the movie that Hellboy once saved as a baby when faeries and Bebop, who was impersonating her starting the grudge against Hellboy, She was played by Sasha Lane, who I never have even heard of, but really liked her character by the end. I don't know if she was played right, but she was good, she was believable, and she could soul punch people, which was kind of awesome.
Blood Queen: The Blood Queen was a weak villain, I will straight up say that she was powerful but practically did nothing of note since it was all on such a low scale. She just loved Hellboy and wanted to marry him. *Shrugs* And kill the humans. But Milla hammed up for this character and it was rather entertaining for the most part for me. But every line was like grand speech from her, and it shouldn't have been. She's a pro but not a good one.
Lucha Fight: There was a lucha fight in the beginning and it was my favorite part of the movie.
Ending Scene: Set up a sequel with this one, guys. They go and stop the Oannes club, find a giant tank, scratch some dust off and it says 'Ichthyo Sapien" and a giant webbed hand slaps against the glass. Kind of dope, but I hope if this gets a sequel, it is better.
Mid-Credit Scene: What's a comic movie nowadays without a mid-credits scene, amirite? It's Hellboy in a drunken stupor at his father's grave, and he gets confronted by Lobster Johnson, and he fanboys over the guy. It was actually pretty funny and the most Hellboyish moment we get from Harbour the entire film.
Cons
Script: The script was trash I think from anywhere after the first half hour to the rest of the movie at best. The pacing was awful, the story didn't make much of any sense. It was like they tried going for a 4-5 hour movie and comic lore, which did they did, condensed it into 2 hours, and what they used was just shot for the trailer. There was way too much exposition, showing us so little and having to tell us everything. They scene jumped so much and had a voice over about it, it made the movie feel like that scene in Ragnarok with Dr. Strange.
Yeah, that one. "We need to go there" (insert exposition) and we're there. (Insert random character) "OMG ITZ U!!!" and they never explained anything about them until we get....more exposition and a flashback maybe. There was a scene where Merlin brings Excalibur forth to Hellboy, but when he grabs it he has a vision of him ending the world, so he doesn't. Merlin dies saying it was Hellboy's only chance. But guess what? 10 minutes later, they're fighting Blood Queen and she slams Hellboy through the floor in a cathedral I think, and lo and behold, Excalibur is there...in Arthur's tomb....so Merlin died for nothing...literally. Daimio was in it with the Jaguar spirit, and he was yelling for Alice to run when he was about to turn, but it did nothing, he seemed to be in control the entire time, making that section of dialogue useless. Between the bad writing, scene jumps, character insertions etc, they really made it hard to care about the characters and what was really just happening in the moment of the movie.
Character Portrayals: From a lot of reviews I've seen online, I will be one of the few to switch things. A lot of people didn't care for Alice, I did, but a lot of people liked David Harbour, I did not. I don't blame Harbour so much for this....I think it had to do with the script. He lacked a lot of things Hellboy should have. He lacked the subtle and insightful intelligence moments Hellboy has, which is something Perlman's Hellboy actually had like when he invented his own bullets and such. Harbour was complaining about reading a book to stop the queen. He also threw a lot of tantrums in this movie because "he was confused about his upbringing". Broom had to tell him all the time to "stop being such a whiny shit". Hellboy in this movie was a brat. And Ian McShane's Broom is an assassin that didn't age...I don't know if that is right or not, but from what I know, it wasn't. He was also an asshole in this movie most of the time, not the endearing Broom that I've seen in what limited forms I have. It just didn't sit right with me with what was consistent, and then tried shoehorning in this quick "I always loved you and I'm proud to be your dad" kind of moment with them, when Broom had maybe one moment with Hellboy when he was dulling his horns that made him seemed like he cared. Aside from that, Broom didn't look like he gave a shit. The actors weren't bad, I just don't think the script helped them.
CGI: Some of the CGI was also bad...baby Hellboy looked terrible, like we're talking 2000's Spawn level kind of bad. It's like they went over budget in some scenes and you can tell. I think the effects in the Del Toro movies were better.
In Conclusion:
This movie was bad. I came into this with an abandonment of the original series, and a slight hype from the 2nd trailer after the first one was bad. This movie did not hold up. The writing was sloppy from nearly start to finish, they shoehorned in so much with too much explanation and not even showing. Ian was just given a bad Broom. Harbour was a giant man-child version of Hellboy without some of the subtleties that Del Toro got right. Some CGI was good, some not so much. The R rating did not help either. You're better off rolling down the stairs, going to see Shazam by far, Pet Semetary, Us, or fudge, even Captain Marvel was more enjoyable than this. The only good things were the ending scenes, some CGI, and I liked Alice, and I liked some of the lore they used, but execution was terrible.
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