Rating of
2/4
"Hellboy (2019)" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 02/02/20
A demon brought up by a supernatural investigator to fight the forces of evil must confront his true nature when faced with an immortal witch intent on conquering the world.
You know that the superhero bandwagon is running at full tilt when a film based upon a comparatively lesser-known comic book is rebooted a mere 15 years after the original is made. After some initial teething trouble, Guillermo Del Toro’s keen visual flair and skill for building fantasy worlds came to the fore to create a pretty decent franchise which was killed off before the Marvel juggernaut really took hold of the public imagination. This remake covers very much the same ground as the first incarnation, this time with David Harbour taking time off from Hawkins, Indiana to do an adequate impersonation of Ron Perlman. This time around the script attempts something a little more “adult” – no doubt in response to the success of Deadpool – but the horror element is represented by blood splatter rather than suspense and atmosphere and the comedy element by a constant stream of juvenile swear words rather than wit. Glaringly obvious in its absence is Del Toro’s visual panache and Neil Marshall’s ADHD direction combined with some unconvincing green-screening and dodgy CGI makes the film seem rather dated and cheap.
As a whole it’s irreverent and action-packed enough to modestly entertain but Hellboy woefully lacks any semblance of sophistication, making it feel like a gory British rip off of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The original Hellboy wasn’t perfect, but this is actually rather worse.
