Dripping with unnecessary gore and bereft of cigars and Catholic themes, Neil Marshall’s Hellboy is unlikely to hit home either with Chestertonians or devotees of the original franchise. But while it may be a demonic disappointment, some fans will be happy to know that guilty pleasures such as this can still be made in the “Age of Marvel.”
Back in 2015, when actor Ron Perlman — aka the original Hellboy — was still actively campaigning to attract studio money to finish Guillermo Del Toro’s much-loved Hellboy trilogy, he offered a simple explanation as to why the third film had yet to receive the green light in an interview with Digital Spy:
“I think one of the things that’s holding it back is that we didn’t have enough fan support for the first two. If you look at the numbers we did, we’re not a blockbuster – we’re not Iron Man, we’re not the Marvel movies, we’re not one of these movies that made half a billion dollars worldwide. That’s a mandate. We don’t have a mandate to do Hellboy 3. All we have is a modest amount of enthusiasm and that’s just not enough in today’s marketplace.”
True, Perlman and Del Toro managed to attract a significant cult following with Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army, but as Perlman’s quote implies, the big-budget superhero movie market was already locked down by Marvel in 2015 (with its closest competitor, DC, taking up most of what remained of that market). In the years since, the studio’s dominance only grew, and ultimately Del Toro’s Hellboy III was deemed too risky to produce. While this broke the heart of many a Hellboy fan (myself included), a sliver of hope remained that the reboot would at least provide an interesting alternate view of our beloved Brother Red.
Alas, it was not meant to be.
On paper, the new film has plenty going for it. The plot is straightforward enough, if a little formulaic: Caught between his demonic nature and his desire for acceptance in the human world, Hellboy (now played by David Harbour of Stranger Things) must face the Blood Queen, (Milla Jovovich of Resident Evil and The Fifth Element fame), an ancient British sorceress who rises from her graves to threaten mankind with extinction.
…Yes, “graves.” It turns out that if you want a vindictive witch to stay dormant, “divide and conquer” is the best strategy — until her minions inevitably reassemble her, of course.
The film isn’t without its occasional charms, of course. Harbour opts not to imitate Perlman’s take on the character (a cigar-chomping “old marine” type), instead shaping his Hellboy into something akin to a whiny man-child who lacks the maturity to accept the responsibilities foisted upon him, and who complains endlessly (a fact that does not escape his colleagues). He also has a rather fouler mouth than Perlman’s version — a characteristic shared by most of the supporting cast.
Genre favorite Milla Jovovich brings a campy flair to her performance as the Blood Queen, and Ian McShane (John Wick, Deadwood) entertains as a more roguish version of Hellboy’s adoptive father, Trevor Bruttenholm (aka Professor Broom). The action scenes buzz with a blues-rock soundtrack and feature a fair number of impressive creatures brought to life both by CGI and practical effects. Indeed, that the film features a number of non-CGI monstrosities will be a pleasant surprise to anyone who misses the days before every movie monster could be realized by less-tactile computer wizardry.
But lost in the reboot’s R-rated action and profanity, what’s sorely missing here is the visual creativity and heart that the original Hellboy films are most remembered for. Del Toro imbued the character with a warmth that made the horned hero not only relatable but lovable, and some would go so far as to argue that the original Hellboy films — in spite of their paranormal subject matter and otherworldly characters — have a bigger heart than any Marvel or DC movie to date. Family, faith, and love are of enormous consequence in the Del Toro films, which affords them a relatability that remains hard to come by in this genre.
Sadly, director Neil Marshall — who, for my money, crafted a couple of splendid niche horror movies early in his career — has taken that warm glow and replaced it with R-rated action and tasteless profanity.
“The end is coming,” whispers Hellboy’s friend early in the film. If only it had come a few years earlier.
Hellboy is rated R for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, and language.
Michael Saltis
A proud native son of Akron, Ohio, Michael currently teaches English to business professionals in Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic. While he doesn't often get away from the "City of a Hundred Spires," he enjoys exploring the rest of the Old Continent whenever possible—especially those storied corners that help him recall the vividly-imagined knights and dragons of his youth.