Starring: David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 121 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2019
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Neil Marshall’s ‘Hellboy’ is the third live-action adaptation of Mike Mignola’s long-running comic series, following in the large boot-prints of Guillermo del Toro’s well-received ‘Hellboy’ and ‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army’. Marshall’s take on the character is leaner, rougher, more rock and roll and far gorier than del Toro’s. This is reportedly in line with the comics, though I couldn’t say (my only understanding of the property comes via del Toro’s two action-adventure-romance flicks). His new leading man, ‘Stranger Things’ star David Harbour, who takes the reins from fan-favourite Ron Perlman, is good casting for this new take, playing Hellboy as younger, fierier and grumblier than his forebear. However, despite Marshall’s well-documented budget-stretching skills (his breakout horror movies ‘Dog Soldiers’ and ‘The Descent’ were pulpy, low-budget spectaculars), he can’t stretch his reported $50 million budget here far enough, ultimately saddling him with an over-reliance on ugly CG creatures and gore that the film cannot overcome.
This movie finds Hellboy (Harbour), the demonic scarlet-skinned paranormal investigator with the right hand made of stone summoned from Hell in the last years of WWII, heading to England on loan from his American government agency, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (or B.P.R.D.). The B.P.R.D., founded by Hellboy’s adoptive father Trevor Bruttenholm (Ian McShane), want Hellboy to assist the Osiris Club, a group established by English aristocrats to protect the British Isles from supernatural threats. The Osiris Club requires his participation in their Wild Hunt, a ritual conducted whenever any of England’s slumbering underground giants awake and require slaying.
Marshall’s grand ambitions are evident in the Hellboy versus giants set piece, which draws upon the skills acquired by the director in his work on HBO’s ambitious television fantasy series ‘Game of Thrones’, which charged Marshall with orchestrating a couple of their more memorable battles (fans will fondly recall his work on the Battle of Blackwater and the Battle of Castle Black). Digitally stitched together to simulate one-take, the fight choreography is a bloody blast, using the combatants’ relatively sluggish pace to its advantage, giving weight and menace to their swinging weapons. However, the digital seams are constantly visible, from the sloppy rendering of the giants to the weak, computer-game-graphics-level effects creating the grassy meadow in which the fight unfolds. The action is also undermined by Hellboy’s apparent indestructibility – if he can withstand being skewered by several spears simultaneously, then what threat does a kick from a giant really represent?
But there are other goings-on in England that Hellboy is less prepared to deal with. A pig-like fairy called Gruagach (performed by Douglas Tait and convincingly voiced by Stephen Graham), with whom Hellboy shares an antagonistic history, has made it his mission to resurrect Nimue (Milla Jovovich, enjoying a bath in, to quote Kenneth Branagh, “the river of ham”), the long-dormant Blood Queen conquered by King Arthur and Merlin millennia ago. As Gruagach cuts a bloody swathe through England collecting the scattered parts of Nimue’s dismembered corpse, Hellboy joins forces with young seer Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane) and M11 operative Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) to prevent the vengeful monarch from unleashing her deadly plague upon humanity.
Hellboy’s character arc closely mirrors that which he undergoes in del Toro’s 2004 film, down to his final temptation to embrace his destiny as the Prince of Darkness, and it ends in much the same way. However, his motivations are different, thanks to the absence of Hellboy’s love interest Liz (played in del Toro’s films by Selma Blair), who allowed del Toro to incorporate the romantic elements that mark many of his features. Here, in the first feature script produced by comics and television writer Andrew Cosby, his emotional journey is tied to McShane’s father figure with mixed results (it doesn’t put enough early emphasis on their connection for it to fully resonate later). Cosby’s adaptation isn’t quite as classically funny as del Toro’s previous efforts either, but it’s often likably strange. Touches like the appearance of hardboiled ‘30s-style crimefighter Lobster Johnson (a funny cameo from Thomas Haden Church) positively distinguish it from del Toro’s movies, while its strange mishmash of Arthurian legend is certainly more interesting than Joe Cornish’s flat January interpretation, ‘The Kid Who Would Be King’. That said, its excessive levels of bloodshed render this version deeply unsuitable for that other title’s young target audience.
The frequent gore is seriously excessive, even by R18+ standards. Little of it is practical (which was Marshall’s preference for portraying viscera earlier in his career), leaving it to be unattractively and unconvincingly rendered in post. Many of the film’s unimaginative CG creatures barely register either, leaving the few practical ones to pick up the slack, often by virtue of a high gross-out factor, like the gruesome, misshapen witch Baba Yaga (performed by Troy James and voiced by Emma Tate). These sparingly used practical effects are solid, most notably the prosthetics used to portray Hellboy, which are more closely aligned with Mignola’s iconic Hellboy design, uglier and more angular than the previous cinematic rendition. The film around him may not hold up, but David Harbour certainly looks the part.
He also plays it well, bringing a coarse edge to the character that Perlman smoothed out in del Toro’s movies. He’s more believable as a rough and tumble, rock and roll loving emissary from Hell. However, Harbour doesn’t have much to work with elsewhere. Other than a few scenes with an appealingly tough-love Ian McShane, Harbour spends most of his screen time with Sasha Lane, who never convinces as Alice. With her head of long dreadlocks, Lane certainly fits the bill of a cool young medium but the American actress struggles uncomfortably with an Irish accent, which battles with the lacklustre CGI for the unwelcome title of “Most Likely to Rip Viewers Out of the Film”. Daniel Dae Kim, who was cast as Daimio after Ed Skrein withdrew in the face of whitewashing accusations, makes a slightly better go of his British accent and brings a steely focus to Daimio, but his efforts are undermined by the character’s eleventh-hour transformations into a CG beast.
This reboot was originally subtitled ‘Rise of the Blood Queen’, ultimately dropped to signal to audiences that familiarity with other ‘Hellboy’ titles was not a prerequisite to appreciating this version. Between this choice and a few sequel-hinting stingers scattered around the end credits, it feels like the cart was put in front of the horse, with the filmmakers resolutely focused on creating a new ‘Hellboy’ franchise. In all their planning however, they forgot to make this movie deserving of a franchise. For instance, a larger budget to put towards some practical visual effects would have gone a long way. It would be unfair to label this ‘Hellboy’ a hellish experience, but it’s far from heavenly.
Callum Ryan is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film & Broadcasting.
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