Hellboy

As usual, I have to express my sincere admiration for Marshall’s visual drive and for the courage to go his own way, but the script of his Hellboy is so weak and chaotic that I can’t praise the film as a whole (and I rooted for it despite the poor marketing and the awful responses). The fast editing and the multiple storylines set the tremendous dynamics of the narration, but also reinforce the episodic nature and messiness of a plot that lacks any strong milestones and arrives at important twists pretty much by chance. It’s quite watchable, though, Harbour is alright, Milla looks almost surprisingly good with a cleavage and some scenes deliver a bit of high-speed guilty pleasure, but the film as a whole doesn’t resonate, is unable to connect the viewer to the story, and the R-rating often feels awfully childish and gratuitous. Maybe in the future I will appreciate it more, but for the time being, what prevails is want and greyness. 50% (23/04/2019)

Though it stays closer to the source material, it is still not a good adaptation. It does not automatically create a film for fans when you combine multiple plotlines from multiple comic books, and I would give anything to have seen Guillermo del Toro's planned conclusion to the trilogy instead of this cluttered outcome. Even though Daniel Dae Kim is appropriately cast as Hellboy in this world of blood, betrayal, and endless fighting, excessive cheesiness or intentional B-movie qualities are not an advantage in this case, but instead a painful burden. From the very beginning, the screenplay relies on necessary shortcuts, thus undermining itself right from the start when it launches three storylines simultaneously and fails to completely extricate itself from this unfavorable starting position until the end. It is a shame about the strangely artificial masks and occasionally bizarre special effects, which often border on the ridiculous. And last but not least, there is the disgraceful and increasingly common posture of using not only blood but also profanity at any cost to achieve a stricter rating. In the second half, it became so childish that I almost grimaced, even though I am always in favor of boldly subverting an overly tense atmosphere. I feel sad about the resulting dead end, as Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen could and should have been an example of how to navigate the path of slightly smaller adaptations of famous comics, instead of closing the door on many potential wonders. (06/07/2019)

The new Hellboy goes uncompromisingly its own way, and the question is, will you like it? Fans of the comics will find a lot of familiar things and maybe they will be willing to forgive Hellboy for moving forward at too high a speed, for the way it neglects character work and for taking a step backwards in terms of filmmaking compared to what Ron Perlman and Guillermo del Toro did years ago. But if you haven’t read Mike Mignola's comics, you're probably better off waiting for Avengers. This Hellboy doesn't have much to offer. (11/04/2019)

I preferred Del Toro’s vision much more. Although this Hellboy tries to draw more on the comic books, it’s bloodier and ruder, but I miss the fantastic poetry here. Here they simply squander the mass monsters and characters appearing here, only to flit by on the screen, leaving you none the wiser. Harbour’s Hellboy is much more hideous, like a heavy-metal street bum, crossed with the devil. The action is hard and dirty, but full of playfulness and invention. The monsters are really demonic. The witch is so horrible that the sight of her made me feel physically ill. But my two-year-old daughter liked it... (31/10/2021)

Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy was more fairytale-like (but still pretty creepy), both films had amazing production design, make-up effects and a distinctive creative imagination. Neil Marshall's vision relies heavily on gory visuals, is more brash and doesn't shy from swear words, in short, it's an R-rated film with all the trimmings, which in the end has its pros and cons. I was unfortunately not as amused by David Harbour's banter as I was by Ron Perlman’s, in fact I had somewhat of a problem sympathising with any of the characters as they all more or less got on my nerves. Besides, the connection with the Arthurian legend left me with rather mixed impressions. But not to cast aspersions, of the characters, I was most interested (i.e. least irritated) by the witch Nimue and liked the excursion to Baba Yaga's cottage on chicken legs. I'm sorry to see how the latest Hellboy movie turned out, because the potential here was great. I wanted to criticise the film for its mostly distracting visuals and not-so-nice visual effects, but given the $50 million budget, that's understandable. But still, what a shame! (22/04/2019)