Terrible! Terrible flick! Hellboy movie was an unnecessary cheap shot fired at an anti-hero that was still very fresh in our memories. Why? Why would anyone mess with it so early? Okay, technically this new version came after a decade, so it wasn’t that early, but still, why didn’t they get a better director to direct it? What about the story? It wasn’t up to the mark either. Blend this poor storyline with Neil Marshall‘s direction and it would literally make you retch. So it does.
Those amazing tales of Guillermo Del Toro were still not forgotten and we were already handed a different version of Hellboy starring David Harbour in hopes to continue Hellboy’s legacy forward. David, even though looks dark and deadly under the skin of Hellboy, does a fine job playing the mean anti-hero. Unfortunately, he isn’t leveraged properly. His world is surrounded by some pathetic screenplay and a shoddy direction that takes away every morsel of gravitas from his role. Then he is asked to dance the dance of the devil in a story that could have become so much more, but it fails to find a proper path.
What makes things worse is the fact that it tries to merge various folklores and stories from the past in a desperate attempt to become something but it ends up scrabbling for anything tangible in the dark. Scrounging for literally anything to hold on to, it ends up becoming nothing.
Action in Hellboy Movie (Spoilers)
Since there wasn’t much to offer as far as the plot was concerned, I was really hoping its action to compensate for it. Unfortunately, even that failed to impress. You don’t feel the adrenaline rush when Hellboy ends up in a fight.
You have to give it to the camera work though which tries its level best to complement the action. You have to acknowledge the movie’s good cinematography. There are some great shots in the movie that would draw your attention almost immediately based on the placement of the cameras.
Some fights were good nevertheless, but then some simply kept waiting desperately to happen. The fight with Gruagach was one of the interesting moments in the movie where you begin to admire the build-up, you know, watching Hellboy meeting his match, and giving him a rough time. Unfortunately, the movie kills the character just when you thought it was getting deadly. Gruagach was slain in the end by the main villain herself.
Things to Look Out For
There are very less of those badass moments in the movie that could really impress you. Like there’s one when Hellboy becomes a fully fledged version of himself, grows horns and a fiery halo atop. Well, that looks rad!
Maybe some of Hellboy’s visions when he picks up the Excalibur and finds himself to be the cause of the destruction. It gives you a proper glimpse into a supernatural world that the movie was trying to prepare us for so painstakingly. The betrayal bit was well portrayed as well since you never see that coming. If it were Game of Thrones the protagonist would have died then and there.
You can order Hellboy movie from here:
Humour at some junctures is good but isn’t executed well. The bad direction simply sucks out all the joy from it.
There are very less of those impressive moments in Hellboy movie that could have made the flick more cherishable. For most of the times, you are left wanting for more.
If at all Hellboy movie tried to seep in some horror, it fails miserably at it. There wasn’t enough solemnity that could have helped it stand on its own. In trying to touch gore too, it becomes disgusting.
Wasted Talents
The character of Nimue The Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich) feels like a complete waste of talent. They tried to create a hard to beat villain throughout the whole movie, showing us all the things she could do, but don’t give Hellboy a good shot at her? Where’s our boss fight? Feels too unjustified and incomplete.
Somewhere you end up feeling Nimue’s character to be very similar to that of Ahmanet from The Mummy who walks out in the open at the end of the movie, making the multitude a victim of her pestilence. The similarities are uncanny, however, what appears worse is the acting here. When Milla Jovovich pretends to be throwing her magic pixie dust at the people, you can’t help but shake your head in repugnance.
Even though Ian McShane has a big role in here as Professor Broom, you feel the pointlessness of wasting him in a movie that didn’t deserve him.
The CGI of Hellboy
There are places where you might be compelled to think about what a great job the make-up and hairstyling team has done for the movie, despite how bad the movie ends up being. Like Gruagach’s is one of those characters that they have conjured up brilliantly paying heed to minuscule details.
Then there are some scenes that have great visual effects in place making things appear very rad. But then it becomes bad too in a jiffy. At times the CGI becomes too low-grade to even have been included.
The worst is the part where the soul emanates from a body to have a tete-a-tete with the movie’s characters. It feels terribly out of place. So much of technology around us and yet we fail to ace it. That being said it seems like Hellboy was trying deliberately to thrive in a universe under the mere pretext of technology. As if the producers of the movie might have said:
Let’s make it, because we can.
The Final Verdict
Hellboy movie is so bad that it would make you miss Del Toro’s version from the past. It will make you miss Ron Perlman who had somehow managed to bring some depth into the role of Hellboy even though he played the same loudmouth character who didn’t like to listen to anybody.
There was great music in that one, great screenplay and story that didn’t need anything else to uplift it. Unfortunately, this one right here ends up being a sheer exercise in futility.
Check out the trailer of Hellboy movie here:
Hellboy
Pros
- David Harbour as Hellboy
Cons
- Bad Plot
- Shoddy Direction
- Poor Screenplay
- At Times Very Stupid
