Hellboy

In 2004 Director Guillermo Del Toro introduced us to Hellboy, the demon spawn of Satan that was summoned to Earth by Nazis but turned to good, fighting the scum of the underworld. The giant red creature with a clubbed fist, affinity for cigars and cute kittens was one of the more endearing anti-hero’s of the modern Cineplex and when crafted with the care and storytelling of Del Toro it turned out to be a really good film.

This reboot directed by Neil Marshal is borderline unwatchable. The backstory is boring and redundant. The side characters are 2-dimensional and forgettable. It’s made to look like Del Toro’s original creations but it lacks authenticity and the execution staggers along a whimsical clutter of flashbacks and painful exposition.

For some reason Hollywood is still enamored with tying in the legend of King Arthur into modern day films (riding that Game of Thrones obsession I’m guessing) but it’s not working, nor is it here in this film.

The main antagonist, the Blood Queen (Mila Jovovich) is decapitate by Arthur and Merlin back in the dark ages and is being pieced together by a warthog “changing” in the present who is bent on bringing her back because he has a 20 year vendetta against Hellboy and wants to see him suffer… a ridiculously vendetta that relies on the stupidity of the audience to go along with.

David Harbour (Stranger Things) does a good job in the lead role of Hellboy but can do little to nothing else when the director believes it prudent to bring back the same Nazi origin story we’ve seen before or to feed us on multiple flashbacks to give the story sense or maybe to fill air time?  I don’t know but it was rough to watch and at times difficult to keep up or care.

Often you’d come across scenes in the film that you think are meant to be cool or stylized but instead reek of ridiculousness and stupidity. Like the literal backstabbing of Hellboy by a group of smug, modern day Knights that try and kill off Hellboy as they hunt a group of giants… “we’ve been doing this for generations, we didn’t need you…” only to be literally decapitated and eaten alive moments later by said giants.

Or the emotional moment between Hellboy and his dead father as he appears as a worm-like vomit out of his partners mouth… Nothing makes sense here.

Important role and side characters appear deep into the film and really don’t provide any spark, more so a deliverance tool to expand on this muddled exposition, which all leads to the climax of London being eaten alive by the creatures from Hell, in grotesque fashion.

I will say the fight scene of Hellboy versus the giants was pretty cool but beyond that it’s a painful sight and a reboot that wasn’t needed with a director not nearly up to par with the imaginative story-telling mind of Del Toro.