From the get go as Ian McShane’s Professor Broom drops F-bomb giving exposition the filmmakers let you know this is a different Hellboy, for whats it worth. Pushing for an R rating allows the use of profanity and boy does Professor Broom dole out the hits. This version of the character is more angry and “on mission” as it were with eradicating evil forces from the world. The fact that Broom was steadfast in killing the monsters of the world weather they deserved it or not gets turned around when he meets Hellboy. Why he didn’t just kill Hellboy when he had the chance is a plot point taken up later in the film but there really is never a resolution as to why he had a change of heart.
As for David Harbour’s Hellboy he a hits a similar tone and growl of Ron Perlman’s version. I’m not sure if he was trying to imitate Perlman’s performance or that his reading of the character just emotes similar. Either way he’s likable as the big red monkey. This Hellboy has seen some shit and has the scars and various stories to prove it. My problem with that is a lot of the context of the film relies on events that happened in the flashback scene. The opening with Broom, exposition great we get that but two of the villains have past histories with Hellboy that they sap away the forward momentum of the film by bringing us into the past. What could work in a comic to define these characters actually hinders this film. Whereas you can have a whole issue break in a story or side-story presenting in panel on the page in a film and it just bogs things down. There is just a lot more legwork here to get everybody up to speed on who the players are.
As the film globe hops from an initial wresting match in Tijuana, to the BPRD headquarters in Colorado and then to England where we meet this films companions. First is Shasa Lane’s Alice who, bless her heart, attempts a British accent. Alice gained a whole host of powers by being kidnapped by Fairies as a child, flashback, and can hear the voices of the dead, and bring back the essence of those recently past by burping up a ectoplamic effigy when touching a person. Daniel Dae Kim plays a British Agent of M11, Major Ben Daimio. A role he got after the character was going to be white washed for the film. Maybe they thought it was unbelievable to have a person of Asian heritage who is British. In any case he had the more convincing accent. He also has abilities seemingly inherited from a were-jaguar, flashback again. They make a decent enough team throughout the film as they track down the big bad played by Milla Jovovich, Nimue the Blood Queen. The less said about her the better.
The nitty gritty and unappealing parts of the movie are it’s tone and editing. Bodies are ripped in half left and right in a ballet of blood and guts, but I don’t care. There are no “oooh and ahhh” moments in this film. I didn’t see a reason to cheer for any of the hit. Getting an R rating for a comic book movie is the nouvau riche way of saying “look at how grown up we can make this, we’re taking things back the source material”. That worked for Logan and the Deadpool movies but not here. The film tried to capture the imagination of the Del Toro film’s with some practical effect monstrosities with Baba Yaga and The Gruagach but the same magic wasn’t the. The CGI monsters just didn’t feel like they had weight, either physically nor in inducing fear and terror. The most egregious of these were the giant Hellboy faces. Something about their appearance looks unfinished and out of place in a unnatural sense. There is a level of motion blur in the scenes and all the fights that doesn’t help with how things look. To cap it off, the editing was so choppy in the fights. The one major gaff outside of it all was a scene at Baba Yaga’s house. Hellboy dangles perilously from a beam outside of the door as the house begins to stand up and walk, as it’s a house with chicken legs. Hellboy is on the right of the screen pulling himself up then, jump cut, its the same frame and angle and he’s now right at the door.
I was so hopeful for this film but this left a bad taste in my mouth even with the likable David Harbour. There was no conclusion to why Hellboy wasn’t murdered by Professor Broom since he’s been a bad ass demon hunter up until that point. In the climax of the film the exchange between the two characters is the linchpin of destruction and all we get is because “you changed me”, from what we saw…in another flashback, there was no indication of a change, no softening of the hardened man, so the line rang hollow of any truth to be seen. I’m all for comic films stepping outside of the pg-13 box but if they are going to do please don’t do it for as a flippant reason as Professor Broom gives here. – Kaos Blac
Hellboy hits theaters tomorrow, April 12th!
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Christian Davenport
cable201@comicattack.net
Kaos Blac
kaosblac@comicattack.net
Huge. Disappointment.