Once upon a time, in the 500s of our era, when all sorts of demons and monsters walked around Mother Earth, like in Piccadilly, the sorceress Vivienne Nimue (Milla Jovovich), nicknamed the Bloody Queen, vilely sent all kinds of infectious diseases to Britain, so that the valiant King Arthur took the magic sword Excalibur, which old Merlin provided him with, and cut the witch into several pieces, which he placed in chests sealed with the Word of God. Arthur ordered the chests to be hidden as far apart as possible, so that, according to the king, the devil himself would not find them.
Many years later. The German-fascist reptile, together with the poet-occultist Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, who joined them, is trying to open a portal to Hell in order to find close relatives of the Fuhrer there. However, either in the process of a bold experiment, not very high-quality substances were used, or Rasputin made a mistake in spells – as a result, instead of a portal, only a gate opened, from which a baby devil jumped out. And he was so adorable that even the ruthless killer Trevor Broom (Ian McShane), a British hunter of monsters and monsters, did not kill the guy from hell, but took him into his family and raised him in the spirit of unshakable British traditions.
Time has passed. Hellboy (David Harbor) is working successfully for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, headed by Broome, but clouds are gathering over the Earth. The dastardly pig Gruagah (Stephen Graham) wants to resurrect the Blood Queen so she can help him transform into a less ugly creature than he is now. Gruagah gradually searches for various parts of the body of Mademoiselle Vivien, opens the chests with a cunning hacker’s trick, and very soon this Lego will be assembled, so the earthlings will start in big trouble.
And who can stop this troubled aunt? Only Hellboy, no one else. After all, he himself is from this company – all sorts of monsters and demons.
***
It is not very clear why the British director Neil Marshall, who works in a very specific genre of reckless and very bloody horror films with all sorts of monsters, suddenly got so fired up to transfer Mike Mignola’s comics about the adventures of a man from hell to the screen. It was clear that audiences and critics alike would inevitably compare the new film to Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy: The Hero from Hell and Hellboy II: The Golden Army, where Ron Perlman played Hellboy with such brilliance and great humor. (By the way, with the first film, it was pure experimentation by del Toro, who insisted that the main character of the blockbuster be played not by a Hollywood star, but by a supporting actor.)
Well, it would seem that you want to embody your cinematic fantasies about monsters and all sorts of horror – so take some regular comics, of which a million have made, and do not deny yourself anything. And the ghost of the previous two films will not hang over the audience, which, although they did not collect a good box office, but they already had their fans – no doubt.
But, as far as I understood, there was nothing purely personal. This decision was made by the studio. It was there that they decided to make the third film of the franchise, and the fees of the previous two films did not add optimism (and Mike Mignola, according to some reports, was against the candidacy of Guillermo del Toro), so they decided not to continue, but to restart. It was necessary to get rid of the old interpretation of the image of Hellboy, make it closer to what is depicted in the comics, sharply lower the degree of romanticism, which did not bring cash, and sharply increase the degree of bloodiness. That is why, apparently, to put on a reboot and invited Neil Marshall, which is now bitterly regretted in the studio, having put fifty million down the drain on Satan. (Marshall had a pretty good reputation in Hollywood after working as a director on Game of Thrones and Westworld.)
What happened to Marshall? He did exactly what was expected of him. Removed all these romantic drool-snot, made Hellboy not a huge handsome man with a subtle soul, like del Toro and Pearlman, but a terribly brutal monster with a very dark humor, preoccupied with his self-identification in the human world, Professor Broom appeared here as a cruel and cynical killer, for whom the interests of the Bureau are above all, the delicate pyrotic flower from the old Hellboy turned into a wild medium Alice (Sasha Lane), who can puke with beautiful three-dimensional holograms of ghosts, and instead of the sensitive and poetic Ichthyander, here, next to Hellboy, there is a mutilated cool commando Major Ben Diamio ( Daniel Dae Kim), who is not much inferior to Hellboy in terms of toughness and combativeness.
A reboot of the franchise was promised – it was done. Now everything is completely different, completely breaking out of the framework of modern comics crafts, which are diligently varnished for the appropriate youth ratings, because it is teenagers who make the box office. And even the cool “Deadpool”, which was almost the first 18+ comics blockbuster – and even then there was more everything somehow on cursing and boobs, but at the same time, flirting with the audience was enough to the fullest.
Here – no, here everything is not so. Here, no one is going to flirt with the audience. Therefore, everything was staged as rigidly as possible, as bloody as possible and completely uncompromisingly. This is exactly what a very small number of viewers and critics liked, because in general the new film does not scold only the lazy, and on Rotten Tomatoes it has only 17% approval. (By the way, as far as I could judge, reading the English and United Statesn reviews, the leading United Statesn critics for this film are more benevolent than the American ones. in the sense that it is also benevolent – but nonetheless.)
A variety of monsters, quite impressive at times (I really don’t know what the audience is whining about “terrible special effects” – they are, in my opinion, decent enough), cruel bloody rubilovo, and even accompanied by appropriate metal audio tracks, rude jokes (they at times they were quite cool – within the framework of the accepted style, of course), dynamically developing events, dismembered by about half of the action of Milla Jovovich – yes, it’s just some kind of holiday!
Marshall’s level of recklessness is especially well demonstrated on a truly chilling creature called Baba Yaga! Even Guillermo del Toro did not think of this (I’m not talking about “Hellboy” now, but about “Pan’s Labyrinth”), who is actually also a great master of creating frightening monsters that crawl out of some very hidden depths of his subconscious. But here – it’s just something with something! On the stage with the kiss of Baba Yaga, I was forced to stop the picture and walk away for about five minutes, admiring the picture of the Windows XP desktop as a symbol of calm and tranquility.
And I must say that I liked it all. Maybe because I had a syndrome of low expectations: the picture was scolded by everyone from all sides, and at the same time I am also a big fan of previous films. But I knew what I was doing, I knew that this was a completely different Hellboy – I looked at him as a completely different Hellboy. And I liked the fact that Marshall did not adapt to anyone, did not curtsy in front of the audience, he shot the picture exactly the way he wanted to shoot it, and for this he deserves respect, especially since the picture actually turned out to be decent. It’s just that this is a very specific genre, which by itself is far from going well for everyone, and then everyone compared the new film with the previous two, and it’s like comparing flies with meatballs or vice versa.
What’s up with acting? David Harbor (Stranger Things Sheriff) as Hellboy is pretty good for the concept. It is clear that he is not as charming as Pearlman’s Hellboy, but here, sorry, there was no such task: he was supposed to be scary and brutal – he was.
Ian McShane is good in any role, and here his Broome turned out exactly as required: this is not the kind grandfather professor from the first film, this is a monster hunter!
Sasha Lane as the girly psychic helping Hellboy is good, but nothing special. I was always afraid that they would have some kind of romantic feelings there, but, thank God, nothing of the sort happened.
Daniel Dae Kim (Korean from Lost) quite convincingly played a cool major, I liked it. I didn’t like only Milla Jovovich in the role of the Bloody Queen – well, there was no proper bloodiness in her, it didn’t work out. But in general, I am very reserved about her acting abilities, you know …
By the way, I read that the studio wanted to re-edit the film for a 12+ rating (which would actually completely screw it up), but Marshall managed to defend the R rating. It is clear that now nothing shines with blockbusters in Hollywood, and, I’ll tell you, it’s very unfortunate. Modern Hollywood films-comicoids, licked to the uttermost sterility, need some kind of opposition. We received it. And, with rare exceptions, not appreciated. It happens.
Hellboy movie meaning
Director: Neil Marshall Cast: David Harbor, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Stephen Graham, Bryn Gleason, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim, Alistair Petrie, Sophie Okonedo, Thomas Haden Church
Budget: $50M, US Grossing: $22M
Fantastic action movie, USA-UK-Bulgaria, 2019, 120 min.