Normally I would not rush to theaters during the opening week to see a reboot of a good movie, but I did for Hellboy because butter popcorn. Also on paper, it looks like it could work. Neil Marshall has directed good movies (The Descent) and episodes for solid television series (Game of Thrones and Hannibal). The cast is strong: David Harbour, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim and Milla Jovovich, whom I adore. Hellboy’s makeup looks seamless and organic. It is an objective improvement, and Guillermo del Toro is no slouch.
Hellboy sucks. Initially it seems promising. It is occasionally funny. I enjoyed the very last fight sequence. I’ve noticed that it can be a bad sign when a movie does not trust the audience and keeps indicating when and where the scene is set. This movie has plenty of those. Numerous times it is unnecessary because a character literally just mentioned where they were going then immediately cut to that location. Other times when it could be helpful, it is omitted.
Hellboy is monotonous. Most of the characters, especially the bad guys, have the same personality, which also undermines the villain’s mission statement. Jovovich plays Vivian Nimue, and she is tired of supernatural creatures having to be in the closet. She is the supernatural Magneto. She’s actually the most interesting character in the movie because she is the only bad guy that does not act like the other bad guys, but then when you meet those that she champions, they are all the same, and only look different. It was a missed opportunity to make her argument resonate as much as it does with the titular character. Instead the movie discards ambiguity and aims for each baddie to be the grossest, but just feels redundant and tries too hard. The new bar for me is the Suspiria remake, and this movie is filled with witches doing similar things, but it pales in comparison. I just kept rolling my eyes. The twists in the movie are predictable.
Hellboy as a character does not work. He was a baby at the end of World War II, has been working since he was ten, but the movie is filled with literally everyone getting the jump on him as if he was born yesterday and has never investigated the paranormal a day in his life. Flashbacks of him taking opponents down made him seem more effective. Also his relationship with his dad feels like an adolescent, and he is a grown ass man. It does not work, and if they’re pandering to their imagined target audience, teenage boys, it does not line up with the character’s history. The emotional confrontation at the beginning of the movie was his best moment, but after that, he basically just screams, “Dad!” It makes him seem huffy and annoying. I think that the inner conflict and feeling like he was betraying his kind could have worked, but Harbour is all alone on that hunk of melting ice. Other than Nimue, the movie does not develop it enough.
The movie is set in “England.” Everyone except Hellboy has an accent, which is more or less dreadful if they weren’t born with it. The clash between modern civilization and the supernatural should feel shocking, but it doesn’t because the real world feels like CGI, not reality. Remember that scene in Avengers: Infinity War when there is another alien invasion in a major metropolis, and the stakes feel high. Imagine the polar opposite of it. It feels like an afterthought instead of a cataclysm. The only time that this movie looked good is when Hellboy has visions of himself in the future. When it feels like there is a slight attempt to visually imitate del Toro’s look at the end, it is too little too late, and it feels like a poorly photocopied image of the original.
Hellboy has no rhythm. Initially I was so happy that it started in the past then the present instead of the How We Got Here narrative trope that I was optimistic, but soon the movie is using flashbacks throughout the movie to fill us in on a character that we already met. I think that it is meant to create suspense because we meet a character without knowing the character’s motivation then later it is revealed in the flashback, but at that point, I honestly didn’t care. I think that it could have worked, but the movie never lets viewers sit and savor the few good moments. The flashbacks or visions are generally the best scenes in the film because they play it straight instead of being hyperactive and never standing still. It makes the movie feel excruciatingly long, and it was painful to stay for the two post credits scenes. If there is a sequel, even as a completist, I’m definitely not seeing them in the theater, and I really hope that they don’t make another. No one wants one.
Hellboy is kind of an origin story for the creation of the team, i.e. Hellboy working with Alice and Major Daimio. The movie should have started with them already being a team because individually they seemed flat. Unfortunately the steps to becoming a team feels trite, and there is not enough of camaraderie between the trio for them to naturally lead to them teaming up. Hellboy has chemistry with Alice, and Alice has chemistry with Daimio, but Daimio and Hellboy never feel like friends until they are. It does not make sense that these two people would leave their lives for Hellboy given what the movie shows us other than they’re supposed to, and Hellboy needs a support system. You can feel the writers congratulating themselves for certain lines, but they sound wooden coming out of the characters’ mouths, and these are good actors so it isn’t their fault. There is one scene that shows them working together, and it is honestly the best scene in the movie. The chemistry works. The action is interesting. The goal that they are trying to achieve does not feel anticlimactic. If the movie started there, it could have worked because then the movie would not have had to show its work, which it clearly was incapable of doing. It is such a horrible missed opportunity.
How bad is Hellboy? Two guys on a weekday leave from their family talked the entire time as if they were alone, and no one minded. A couple abruptly left the group which consisted of an Aryan wannabe aesthetic and stomped out of the theater. I initially thought they were walking out because the movie was that bad, but their friends seemed puzzled too. They stomped back in just as empty handed as they left so they weren’t getting snacks. It was more riveting that the movie. I had my phone on silent, and someone kept calling me. Eventually I picked up and said in my normal voice, “I’m at the movies so I can’t talk, but no one really cares.” It was true. The lights were on at the beginning of the film. They wouldn’t turn on at the end. It was fine. It made sitting through the movie bearable.
