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nHellboy (2019)

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nDirector: Neil Marshall 

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nCast: Dave Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane

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nI have never cared for Rotten Tomatoes, like at all. They’ve been doing this thing where they’ll post an article based on the Rotten Tomatoes score saying such and such a movie has such a low Rotten Tomatoes score.  You know what I say to that? Who cares? More than once they have done that sort of thing, then I see the movie they have trashed and I end up enjoying it. So it’s getting to the point where if Rotten Tomatoes says a movie is going to be bad or has a low score, I immediately feel like I will more than likely like it. And I’m not just talking out of my caboose, I just saw Hellboy (2019) a film that Rotten Tomatoes and apparently the rest of the internet decided they were going to hate and I ended up having a blast with it. So let’s get that out of the way, this remake was fun as hell. It ain’t perfect, but it sure as hell wasn’t “worst film of the year” or “cinematic pond scum” as they were calling it. 

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nHellboy is all about this evil witch who was so evil they cut her up into a million pieces and scattered her pieces throughout the land so that no one could put her back together again. You see, she’s so evil they chopped of her head and it still lives! Kind of like Vigo The Carpathian in Ghostbusters II (1989)? Anyhow, you just know someone is going to find all the pieces and resurrect her. This evil Blood Queen has world destroying aspirations and at the same time she’s looking for her King and she’s got her eye on good old Hellboy. Meanwhile, Hellboy is having he’s usual existential dilemas. Is he good? Is he evil? Is he meant to destroy the world or save it?

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n The problem with this movie is that everyone is coming ready to rip it a new one, they are not even considering giving it a chance. Why? Because it’s not Guillermo del Toro directing, because it’s not Ron Perlman playing Hellboy, because there’s no Abe Sapien. But you know what, I’m fine with someone else directing because even though I love Del Toro’s movies, and I love his appreciation for all things horror and Lovecraft, I’m not a huge fan of his schmaltzy, over sentimental side. You know how he always manages to turn any one of his movies, even if its horror into a big old romance thing? Crimson Peak (2015) and the Hellboy movies are a great example of this. And to be honest, the romance between Hellboy and Liz never felt real to me, it felt forced. The good thing about Neil Marshall’s take on Hellboy is that it has none of that. It’s more of a horror film.

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nAnd in that sense, it is more faithful to Mike Mignola’s comic books, which have always been completely immersed in horror. Actually, this movie gets bonus points in my book for going into Hellboy’s true origins about his real mother and father! No one had done that before. The cool thing about this movie is that it kind of takes all the different monsters we’ve seen throughout Mignola’s comics and incorporates them into one bombastic love letter to horror! We get witches, zombies, warlocks, the end of the world, giants, pig monsters, Baba Yaga, cannibalism…you name it, it’s in there. So the film is never boring. You can’t blame Guillermo del Toro for making his films romantic, because it’s part of  what makes a Del Toro film a Del Toro film, just like you can’t blame Neil Marshall for incorporating elements of King Aurthur and the Knights of the Roundtable into his films. I remember seeing Neil Marshall’s post-apocalyptic film Doomsday (2008) (now there’s a bad film!) and thinking why would he squeeze knights and horses into this movie? They just felt so out of place in a post apocalyptic film. And now he has also done it in Hellboy and I realize its his thing. Just like all directors have “their thing”, which they do in all their movies. On Hellboy, Marshall somehow found a way to incorporate Excalibur and Merlin into the story. Like I said, everything but the kitchen sink here. Is that a good or a bad thing? Depends. Do you like your movies fast paced? I personally dug the whole Excalibur angle to the movie. 

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n Then there’s the issue of David Harbour; sure he aint Ron Perlman, from day one Harbour had huge shoes to fill. Did he pull it off? Well, I have to tell you guys that he is pretty much the same character. He is playing Hellboy. I really didn’t feel that big difference from Perlman to Harbour. Except that in some scenes it looks like Hellboy’s gained a couple of pounds. So I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with Harbour’s take on the character, I think he did a fine job. What does take a bit of getting used to is Hellboy’s new look. He looks slightly different, but no big deal either. The icing on the cake is Milla Jovovich as the Blood Queen, a new addition to the Hellboy universe. She makes a decent villain, one that attempts to acquire Hellboy’s affections. 

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n Finally another awesome thing about this remake is that it has substantial gore and special effects. There’s this awesome scene in which Hellboy fights these giants that looks amazing, a show stopper, very interesting camera work going on in those scenes. There’s lots of decapitations, lots of bodies being ripped apart, I mean this movie really does earn its hard ‘R’ rating. This movie is certainly NOT for kids, just saying. So bottom line, I don’t get the hatred. It’s almost like ‘they’ don’t want you to see this movie, which obviously means you should. Powers that be don’t like horror films, have you noticed how much they’ve changed through the years? Have you noticed what is allowed and marketed in Hollywood? It’s films that make you want to go to church! If it’s about a demon who gets beaten by reading from the bible or by waving a cross at it, then the film is green lit! The Nun and The Conjuring come to mind. Hellboy goes against all that. This film goes against the grain, so of course, its going to get the hatred. I mean here we have a film that’s getting a huge theatrical release, and it’s a film in which a demon from hell is the hero of the picture! My conspiracy theory with this one is that this is why it’s being lambasted by the “critics”. Worst part is that a lot of the bashing happened even before the film was released? I mean, people who are saying its garbage are just going with the media, which apparently doesn’t want you to lose your faith or take it lightly. So anyways, is there anything negative I can say about this movie? Um, let’s see…it was fast paced? Story was a little generic? That’s about it? Too bad people tend to go with whatever crappy article they see posted on the internet. Oh wait, this movie has a kick ass rock and roll soundtrack, no wait that’s a good thing. For a fun night at the movies, you can do a lot, lot worse than this. I say go have a hell of a time!  

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nRating 4 out of 5 

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