Review: Hellboy (2019)

Hellboy (2019)

Like Hellboy himself, this film was clearly created in one of the deepest layers of hell... but, unlike the hero of Mike Mignola's universe, this film is completely devoid of any saving graces or shreds of humanity. Simply put, this film is an abysmal failure. Personally, I am a huge fan of the character and world of Hellboy, which makes this year's reboot really one of the greatest disappointments I have experienced at the theatre thus far.

 Supposedly, there was quite a lot of drama going on behind the scenes during the making of the film - a power struggle between a few of the producers and the directors, re-writing by the actors while filming, firings, and walk-offs. This may account for a few final deficiencies, however, while watching this film, it is quite remarkable to see how this film failed to do pretty much anything correctly. The script is awful - there is no justification for the abundant profanity and gore, the plot feels like a string of unconnected and unimpactful shorts, the acting is lousy considering the talent involved, there is zero apparent chemistry between the actors, the CGI is noticeably poor, the action is unexciting, the editing and pacing are awful, and the soundtrack is totally obnoxious and unfitting.

Yes, the Hellboy stories that the film is based on are dark and violent and contain some gore and profanity. However, the stories within the world of Hellboy are based on generation-old folklore from various cultures, and Mignola's incorporation of said adult-elements are done in an almost-campy and quite hyper-realized nature. The swearing is quite infrequent and always blocked out with symbols (for example, this film was a pile of S#&$!) and, for those who know Mignola's art style, the gore is blocky and stylized and the furthest thing from the visceral bloodshed found in this film. In general, Hellboy has an inherent charm and whimsical nature (largely due to its fairy-tale foundations) that is nowhere to be found in this film. This film is actually devoid of any sense of charm at all. It tries to crack jokes here and there, but I didn't laugh at any one of them. The film is also centred largely on the relationship between Hellboy and his 'father', Professor Broom, but this, again, was poorly written and developed and I found myself not caring whatsoever, mainly because Broom is portrayed here as a total prick. Another major point that this film gets wrong is that the BPRD (the secret government agency Hellboy works for) is portrayed here as a military-like outfit that simply goes to locations around the world to execute creatures, whereas in the source comics they are an organization that researches and investigates paranormal occurrences and creatures - you can see the major impact those changes would make to the story... The only thing at all that I took some gratification in was seeing so many of the famous story elements and characters from the comics rendered on-screen for the first time - but, again, none of these were done particularly well (except seeing Baba Yaga's house atop its chicken legs walking through the mist, which was pretty cool...).

I implore all of you that this film is not representative of the character of Hellboy himself. Go see Del Toro's former, excellent films or read some of Mignola's fantastic comics (the Library Editions are beautiful collections worth reading) and then let me know what you think. As for this film, let us all attempt to throw it back into the hell from whence it came and hope that this is not the last we see of Red on-screen.