Hellboy

Having a 50 million-dollar full-length feature written by a debutant screenwriter with no experience in feature-lenght films, and assuming that it will then "somehow" work under the direction of a slasher B-movie director from England, is a really ignorant overestimation. It is therefore fair for the producers that the movie flopped. Although it seems there must have been a serious endeavor to please the comic book’s fans, Cosby's screenplay for this two-hour-long movie just does not work at all, and it appears to be an overpriced and incoherent dud, where the shallow characters have no chemistry between them, and so we cannot feel any sort of emotions from them. Also, their motivations are either completely shallow or straight up just completely random. Hellboy comes across like a computer game, where you are constantly jumping from one location to another, finding a key that will move you on to the next level, in a superficial (and seemingly unnecessary) plot. With all that being said, this movie is a really disgustingly big pile of CGI excrement. However, when I put aside even the most basic expectations I have from any movie (in other words, I switch off my brain), I absolutely did not enjoy this in any way. Actually, after those two hours, I could not figure out how this appalling failure of a movie was supposed to hold my attention. (17/09/2019)

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)

Harbour’s good, with all the right catchphrases. The gigantic outcasts from hell in the climax might be the most impressive ever. The casting of Milla Jovovich appropriately defines the target audience composed of fans of bloody, B-level monster freak-shows. Neil Marshall’s imagination knows no bounds, nor does his courage (or lack of common sense?) to flush such a huge budget down the drain. His Hellboy amuses with its stupidity, excess and craziness, but watching it in a cinema seemed extremely out of place, even bizarre. With the right crew at home, beer and popcorn, I might be inclined to give it three stars. (17/04/2019)

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)

In some aspects, Hellboy has pretty decent balls. Unfortunately, not even the exploited to the marrow R-rating and the good jokes here and there can alter the fact that it looks uglier than shit. Really, it’s been a long time since I last saw an audiovisual work that looked so terribly unaesthetic. An awful, overelaborated digital mess; the cancer of modern filmmaking and, in this case, in the terminal stage. (11/04/2019)