Hellboy (2019)

The Low-Down: Hellboy, a cult comic creation dreamt up by Mike Mignola, is a fascinating meditation on the eternal ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate: can a demon child rebel against the blood that flows through his veins and choose his own fate? The movie-going public was first introduced to the existential crisis that is Hellboy in 2004 by visionary director Guillermo del Toro, whose gothic sensibilities and love of the ugly misfit were a perfect fit for the source material. 15 years and a couple of jettisoned productions later, the third Hellboy film – a del-Toro-free reboot, rather than a sequel – is finally thundering into cinemas, and will have you wondering if it was worth all that time and effort.

The Story: Hellboy (David Harbour) – under the guidance of his adoptive father, Trevor (Ian McShane) – is hunting down monsters for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) when destiny comes a-calling. Nimue (Milla Jovovich), a dastardly sorceress of world-destroying power, is set to break free from her several prisons so that she can turn the world of men into a haven for monsters. Accompanied by living ouija board Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane) and grumpy BPRD agent Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim), Hellboy must decide if he will help or hinder Nimue as she sets the apocalypse in motion.

The Good: This new incarnation of Hellboy is fierce and unapologetic in everything it does – from its shiveringly awful monsters to its explosive moments of mayhem and carnage. If that’s your kind of thing, you’ll enjoy what director Neil Marshall, best known for cult horror flicks like The Descent and Dog Soldiers, is going for here. He leans heavily into the ‘creature’ aspect of ‘creature feature’, particularly in nightmarish scenes featuring Nimue regaining her body (think Frankenstein, with an added cringe factor) and unholy mess of a witch Baba Yaga collapsing and contorting her way across the screen.

The Not-So-Good: Unfortunately, the film is a mess in pretty much every other way, teetering between brilliant, batshit and bad – often in the same moment. Part of that is due to the strangely uneven special effects and prosthetics, which range from eye-popping to laughable. But it’s in Andrew Cosby’s desperately plot-obsessed screenplay too, which contains some great, fun ideas but constantly undercuts itself with painfully banal dialogue and minimal character development. It’s a very peculiar experience to be simultaneously fascinated by and disappointed in a scene or character, and that keeps happening throughout Marshall’s film.

Safe Harbour? You’d never know it beneath the unwieldy prosthetics, but Hellboy is played – this time around – by one of the breakout stars of Netflix’s Stranger Things. It’s a shame that you can barely see what Harbour is bringing to the character and the performance; his hangdog charm and ability to emote is buried under layers of red make-up and a stubbornly fake chin. He looks great in still photographs, but often appears clunky and clumsy in motion. Script-wise, Harbour isn’t given much to do, beyond playing catch with the next plot point and battle sequence. As a result, his Hellboy winds up as the least interesting character in a film actually named after him.

Running The Good Race If nothing else, Hellboy has a lesson to teach Hollywood and casting agents the world over about whitewashing and the importance of representation. Ed Skrein was originally cast as Ben Daimio, but voluntarily withdrew from the project when he realised that the character was of Japanese origin. It’s still annoying that Asians from different countries are interchangeable in Hollywood terms – Kim is of Korean descent – but, hey, baby steps are better than nothing. At least Kim acquits himself quite well in a complex role, although his British accent is wobbly at best.

Recommended? It’s a toss-up. There are enough good ideas and visual flair for Hellboy to be worth a watch, but it’s also sorely missing the crucial ingredients that made del Toro’s films take flight: heart and soul.

 

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

The four-year gap between the first installment of the Hellboy series and this second one, the clunkily-named Hellboy II: The Golden Army, has not been kind to my memories of director Guillermo del Toro’s pet blockbuster franchise. I recall greatly enjoying the first film, but being severely let down by its damp squib of an ending – which, honestly, I don’t remember anymore. So I wasn’t sure just what I was letting myself in for with this sequel that I felt didn’t particularly need to be made, of a cult anti-superhero that has a far less fervent following than any of his counterparts like Spidey, the Bat dude or the X-Men. Having seen the film, I can now safely say that any Hellboy or del Toro afficionado would have enjoyed TGA immensely, for the film is now very clearly del Toro’s own, untouched by commercial concerns or the troublesome meddling of Hollywood studios keen to avoid allowing one man’s delightfully skewed vision to act as a drain on potential box office returns. Unfortunately, at least in my book, stamping his voice so clearly on the material does not necessarily mean that del Toro has produced a great movie for the franchise.

But more on this later. In this second film, we’re introduced again to Hellboy (Ron Perlman), a gruff hulk of a man trapped in a burly red demon’s body. He’s constantly on the outs with lady love and firestarter Liz (Selma Blair), even as they continue working for the government to rid the world of supernatural threats and creepy-crawlies. Not much rest for the emotionally fraught, however, for Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) is keen to reopen the age-old battle between Man and elfkind – to allow the elves to reclaim the world from the machines and machinations of mere humans. He seeks to break the truce by unleashing upon the world the unstoppable Golden Army, but to do so needs the three pieces of a sundered crown: one of which is held by his pacifist sister Nuala (Anna Walton). Hellboy and his gang, including the amphibious closet romantic Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), soon find themselves involved in an epic bid to put a halt to Nuada’s schemes… even as Hellboy is himself painfully reminded that he is different from the world and the people he constantly strives to protect.

There is a great deal that is ridiculously, breathtakingly good about TGA: a lot of it involving del Toro’s expansive vision for the whole enterprise. Rich, intricate details of entire worlds are folded into the design and aesthetic of the film: whether Hellboy is encountering tiny toothy creatures at once adorable and menacing, or literally fighting his way through a bustling troll market. The screen comes as close as it could possibly get to pulsing with a strange, unfamiliar life when Hellboy and his gang wage war against a giant Elemental – a green monster unfolding itself across the face of a skyscraper – or go face-to-face with the lavishly gothic, freakily eyeless Angel of Death (also played by Jones, who is without a doubt del Toro’s dude-in-costume go-to guy). The action scenes, when they work, crackle with an energy and fire that is quite exciting to behold – the opening set-piece, which features Hellboy et al battling against a swarm of tiny creatures only too eager to swarm over humans and rip their flesh to shreds, is a master class in tension that still somehow manages to be shot through with a wry, dark humour that is very much del Toro’s own.

The problem with the film – and this is only a problem if you don’t completely buy into del Toro’s vision and aesthetic – is how blatantly self-indulgent it is. Clearly del Toro has managed to wrest full creative control for himself this time: without having to pander to a studio’s commercial concerns, he lets himself loose… and winds up with a film whose plot occasionally stumbles over scenes that he clearly wants to include for sheer visual impact rather than actual narrative value. Some of the indulgences are worth it – Hellboy and Abe having a bit of a drunken singalong to a Barry Manilow song has got to be one of the great wtf? moments in cinema this year.

But sometimes it can get just a little bit much. It’s clear from this film how del Toro feels that some of the fine art and detail embedded in the sets and character design are just too good to be missed – and so he ensures that enough screen time is lavished on these moments, sometimes at the expense of pacing and proper story-telling. The ending of TGA is also a letdown, though not quite on the scale of the first film. Even so, it is poorly plotted and riddled with a fundamental lack of logic that is frustrating in the extreme – the climax quietly implodes upon itself, and the film sort of runs away from del Toro at that point.

That being said, TGA is a fun romp and a gorgeous ride – there are very few films today that can match the sheer beauty of del Toro’s work in this film, which is amazing considering that this should really have been simply a rough-and-ready superhero movie. With del Toro, however, big-budget clearly comes a little bit arthouse as well. In all, del Toro is working with a better story (a nice though slightly muddled emotional arc for Hellboy that involves him coming to terms with his role in the world as a protector of people who shun him) and better-fleshed-out characters (Abe gets a nice boost in his role through an occasionally over-sappy but otherwise sweet romance). He winds up with a slightly better movie. Whether this merits a third outing for all concerned is something I cannot judge – but if the franchise continues to improve as it expands, even if incrementally, perhaps it’d be worth it to see what lovely flights of fancy del Toro will take his red-skinned, trigger-happy hero on next.