A reboot of Hellboy doesn’t sound like a bad idea. You understand why they would want to do that, plus they seem to have a chance to be creative simply based on the property they have. If done correctly, building a legitimate following would be easy and would lead to sequels that could spark excitement. Unfortunately for Lionsgate, I’m almost certain that they won’t be able to accomplish this. I saw the movie, and these guys managed to botch things right from the start.
After Hellboy (David Harbour) travels to the English countryside to help out with a big case, he discovers an ancient sorceress (Milla Jovovich) has been resurrected and is out for revenge. From then on,he begins to put the pieces together and begins to uncover clues to his past, his future and what he must do to put an end to a highly significant threat to Earth. If he’s unable to do that, it may not only be the end of him, but he may also find himself at the center of planet’s destruction.
The only thing I truly liked was the gory nature of most of the violence that we get throughout a large chunk of the movie. It’s a movie that respects its rating and does as much as they can with it. Too often, we see movies that don’t go as far as they can under these types of circumstances. In this instance, they push it far enough without grossing out a significant portion of its viewers.
Handling the action and violence this way set us up for a good 2-hour run. However, that didn’t last once they started digging into the story. While the action is usually worth watching in the early going, the introduction of the main story brings everything down by being almost completely unfocused. To say this part of the film is a mess would be an understatement.
Giving us a chance to simply find out about the core elements of the story is fine, but they just start adding in so much stuff for no reason. This takes you out of the grotesque violence and forces you to keep up with all they’re throwing at you. I guess some of it was to make Hellboy more important to the what’s going on, but it wasn’t really needed and should have just allowed him to be someone who is investigating a case and trying to find a way to solve it.
Hellboy is the kind of movie that you’re supposed to just have fun with. Instead, they feed you so much that you become unwilling to digest anything else that they’re trying to force onto you. If this was slimmed down a bit, most of the other stuff that’s included could have been serviceable and satisfying to an extent even if it ends up not being fantastic.
Lionsgate really whiffed on this Hellboy reboot. This is not a huge property, so doing almost everything right was important. Even if they made a good movie, making enough money to see this turned into a franchise would have been difficult. Because they failed to even do that, it’s safe to say that’s not going to happen. They really needed to focus on crafting a decent story. Doing so could have made a pretty huge difference.
Rating: R
Director: Neil Marshall
Cast:
David Harbour
Milla Jovovich
Ian McShane
Sasha Lane
Penelope Mitchell
Daniel Dae Kim
Film Length: 120 minutes
Release Date: April 12, 2019
Distributor: Lionsgate Films
