Hellboy: Hell No

You know you are in for a rough experience when the opening narration leaves you with your head in your hands. This is an abomination of a movie that gone so far beyond having an identity crisis that is could be classified as existing in an identity Armageddon. This is a soulless, eye-rolling, disaster of a film that shouldn’t have been made.

Where to even begin with this one? David Harbour as Hellboy is not outright horrible and does give a decent performance. Unfortunately, he is not helped by an absolutely horrible script that can’t decide what it wants to be. One minute it trying to a full out comedy, then it will quickly shift to a dark thriller, and then it will shift again to be a fantasy film. It will always go back to being a comedy though, although that word is used in the loosest sense. Hellboy has a one-liner for literally every situation in this movie, and almost every single one of them misses the mark. Almost none of the other characters have any weight of all, with the exception of Daniel Dae Kim’s and Sasha Lane’s characters. The moments of the film when it is just those characters together are easily the best of the film, and the film would have been infinitely better if it has just focused on them. Everyone else is just there, and adds nothing. This is especially true of Milla Jovovich, who is given the villainous role of Queen Exposition-and-Plot-Explanation. It has been a long time since I’ve seen a major character in a film be so utterly worthless. Despite supposedly being such a huge threat, other than showing some power for roughly thirty seconds, this character is just here from Hellboy to have a finding-of-self moment and to be taken out.

So this is a terrible written, inconsistent, emotionless film, and I truly believe that the people in charge knew this when making the movie. It seems like their way of rectifying these issues was to make this movie a hard R, because extreme violence and language will certainly be the tape that holds this disaster together, right?! Oh boy does this movie love its violence, and to be fair the effects are good. It doesn’t change the fact that it adds nothing to the film, other than allowing the marketing department the chance to say “See, this movie is hardcore!” Good effects can add to a film for sure, but this was like taking the best work of Tom Savini, and putting it towards stabbing a trash bag. Sure, the effects will look great, but in the end, it is still being used on garbage.

There isn’t much to say about this one other than to say avoid it. This is a movie that honestly shouldn’t have been made, especially when Del Toro wanted to make Hellboy 3. The fact that this was made instead of that is an utter insult, and this movie will be best forgotten. Avoid this unless you are having a bad movie night with drinking rules.

.5 / 5