Pros: Soundtrack; staging some fights; self-irony Cons: Confusion of the narrative; confusing lore; overload with storylines; excessive brutality; weak computer graphics; unclear staging of most fights; the main character lacks charisma Hellboy / “Hellboy”
Genre: Comic book film
Directed by Neil Marshall
Cast: David Harbor (Hellboy), Milla Jovovich (Nimue), Ian McShane (Trevor Bruttenholm), Sasha Lane (Alice Monahan), Daniel Dae Kim (Major Ben Daimio), Thomas Haden Church (Lobster Johnson), Penelope Mitchell (Ganeida) , Sophie Okonedo (Lady Hatton), Bryn Gleeson (Merlin), etc.
Студии Lionsgate, Millennium Films, Summit Entertainment
Year of release 2019
Site IMDb
The film that eventually became Hellboy 2019 was originally planned as the final part of Guillermo Del Toro’s trilogy, with the script for the film to be written by the original character’s creator Mike Mignola. And the charismatic Ron Perlman, beloved by the public, would play the main character. Unfortunately, both first films showed very modest results at the box office: the first part did not gain even $100 million with a budget of $66 million, the second – $160 million out of an investment of $85 million. Del Toro had difficulty in approving the budget he needed for the threequel and, as a result, he lost the director’s chair, deciding to limit himself to helping with writing the script. Ron Perlman, in turn, refused to participate in the project without his favorite director. In addition, at that time the actor was already 65 years old, which was too much for him to run around the set with false horns and a fake hand.
As a result, in 2017, the film was positioned as a restart of the series with an R rating, the director’s chair was taken by Neil Marshall, who specializes in horror, and David Harbor, the sheriff from the series Stranger Things, was cast as the leading actor.
In order to position the new film from the films of Guillermo Del Toro as much as possible, the scriptwriters removed most of the characters familiar to us from the first duology, but added dozens of new ones. In order to somehow justify and explain the appearance of a crowd of new characters in the film, the authors had to resort to numerous flashbacks, one of which the film begins with – this overloaded the already confusing lore. Moreover, such a number of heroes, storylines, inserts and cross-references did not allow the characters themselves to be properly written. All of them, including the main character, are sorely lacking in charisma.
What makes the situation worse is that, unlike Ron Perlman, who would look great as a demon and with a minimum of makeup, David Harbor in most scenes looks like a man in makeup and a suit several sizes larger than himself. Add to this some very sloppy CG in some of the scenes and… you get a trash film of category B. No, there is nothing wrong with trash films in general, it is a rather original genre, but the budget of such films cannot be $50 million, and among the performers There shouldn’t be celebrities on the level of Milla Jovovich. However, remembering Future World…
The situation is aggravated by the authors’ love for dismemberment, guts, blood and brains. Yes, the R rating and the style of trash films imply copious use of fake blood, regular ripping off of heads and ripping open bellies… but at the moment when this begins to cause a gag reflex, it would still be worth stopping. To be honest, watching the scene of the attack on London or the visit of Baba Yaga is simply unpleasant. Let’s say, the same Deadpool, with a similar rating and liters of blood, does not cause disgust.
However, one can consider that the entrails scattered across the stage and the brains spreading out is something like post-irony, because the heroes of the film really try to joke with themselves and at times they even succeed, however, to the ease of the same Deadpool or Thor: Ragnarok here very far.
Some of the fights in Hellboy 2019 are truly impressive, even despite the CGI flaws, especially Hellboy’s battles with large opponents accompanied by a catchy soundtrack. Others, with ordinary opponents, look too chaotic, crumpled and simply poorly choreographed.
Where Guillermo Del Toro’s films excelled in style, charisma of the characters and quirkiness of the pictures, the reboot is trying to conquer with brashness, mass and outrageousness. Alas, it doesn’t work that way. Instead of a brutal action about a demon with a stone hand jokingly dealing with his opponents, we got a vague statement on the topic of tolerance for monsters, generously seasoned with blood, guts and not always successful jokes. Plus a retelling of the already well-known story about the origin of the Boy from Hell, the Nazis and Grigory Rasputin.
By and large, Hellboy 2019 is a reboot that no one needs. Honestly, better watch the original Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). The first film, for example, recently appeared on Netflix.
Conclusion:
Reboot of the comic book adaptation about a demon from hell, which, by and large, no one needs
