There was originally a third segment planned for my 2019 retrospective, but then a few things came along and just sucked all the fun out of it. Not that remakes or reboots nobody was asking for are really that much fun to begin with, but I thought it would make a nice bookend. Instead this (along with the second title I'll look at here) just made me feel like checking out of movies altogether. Remember Hellboy? Well this is Hellboy again. Only worse. Remember monster battles, saying no to destiny and Second World War themed schlock? Well it's all back. Only worse. Less a film and more of an embarrassing mess that reminds everyone that sometimes movies are only made so studios can keep hold of an intellectual property.
Where to even begin? The film starts off badly with lots of poor green screen effects and a lot of weird cursing to let you know what's in store. Everything feels slightly off and it never gets any better. It was the time of King Fucking Arthur and he was a total bad-ass. These attempts at being cool and edgy feel so bizarre and juvenile, making any attempt to tell a story about mythology or set the stage for a real drama just laughable. I love outrageous quips and lashings of blood when they're appropriate, but this really isn't the time. Neil Marshall has done this kind of thing really well in something like Dog Soldiers which is purposely abrasive and self aware. But trying to mix that sort of thing with fairy tales and fantasy is a mistake.
King Arthur proceeds to butcher The Blood Queen, Nimue (Milla Jovovich) who threatens to wipe out mankind so that goblins and trolls can rule the world. Remember that clash of creatures and humans in Hellboy II? Well it's back, only worse. She can't really die of course, and her resurrection is kind of a ticking clock for the story in the present day. At least I think that's the idea. The film is more concerned with a revenge plot about failed changeling Gruagach (Stephen Graham), a cult run by stuffy English hunters, and the motives of Hellboy's adoptive father Professor Bruttenholm (Ian McShane). Hellboy (David Harbour) must face his inner demons and struggle with those who would want him dead or wish to turn him into a force of the end times.
You've seen this all before because it's like those last two films. Only... well you get the idea. All of this stuff feels really random. Whether it's the flashbacks to Hellboy saving Alice (the child Gruagach tried to replace; played as an adult by Sasha Lane) or his fight with a vampiric luchadore, or the inclusion of crime fighting hero Lobster Johnson (Thomas Hayden Church). It's like watching a lot of clips from a failed television pilot. Even the best moments involving a visit to Russian witch Baba Yaga (Emma Tate) are very disjointed. This scene and a couple others looks very good in terms of production design, but a lot of others look really cheap. Gruagach himself is actually an impressive mix of different special effects, but maybe all this other stuff should have been reigned in or cut out.
Hellboy himself is still depicted as a petulant teenager for some reason, as if these film makers don't know another way to have a father-son relationship play out. With so much of the source material being picked out at random for this shambolic storyline is it too much to ask for them to get characters right? It was kind of jarring in the older films, and here it's just annoying. Ian McShane is doing some sort of grizzled anti-Dad thing that is very odd, while David Harbour just comes off as confused. Or drunk. Maybe it's just the terrible make-up he's wearing, or maybe he's really slurring the delivery of some lines. Recycling more bits from Hellboy II there's a new authority figure introduced as his foil; this time ex-soldier Ben Daimio, (Daniel Dae Kim). But without a proper back-story his inclusion feels about as rushed and cheap as everything else.
The whole things feels like a weird attempt to copy what The Amazing Spider-Man 2 did wrong, and it's just as mystifying. By cramming in a bunch of comic book ideas and characters without the running time to support them it becomes a train wreck. It just makes those original adaptations look better, and while neither Spider-Man or Hellboy were perfect you could still feel the craft and passion involved. This is like a studio budget balancing exercise rather than an attempt to tell a story. Hellboy creator Mike Mignola was apparently involved with the script, but I feel like they just took his work and slapped together a vague treatment before it was passed through five other writers. His comics might have mixed the macabre and the goofy, but they were never this brazenly stupid.
The result is a tedious slog that wants to be gruesome and violent, but also wants to be sinister and creepy. It wants pulp thrills and one liners, but also wants flayed skin and dismemberment. It has a few brief moments of atmosphere and dread, but it's full of distracting pop music. Because that's what comic book movies have in them nowadays I guess? But these elements just negate one another and sap any potential for real drama the story might have had. If this was a genuine horror themed take on the material it might work, but with so much inane dialogue trying to add comedy it's constantly struggling with itself. It's less Frankenstein and more Frankenstein's monster. A weird contorted mess that doesn't belong in its own skin.
1/5
BONUS REVIEW
THE LION KING (2019)
Remember The Lion King? Well it's back! But worse! Now they've successfully removed the art from the artifice, so you can enjoy the same story without any personality. It's a technological breakthrough; a film made by animators that doesn't have any life to it. A story full of musical numbers that is devoid of emotion. It certainly looks stunning in a way, flawless even. But this is less a film and more a computer rendering exercise. I have to admit this has all come a long way since Monsters, Inc. But to what end? The hairs are perfectly realistic now so that we don't have to suffer the indignity of watching something in which you can see the artist's hand. And it's all so incredibly boring.
Yes the beats of Hans Zimmer's score still hit all the right spots and there are some moments of awe, either because of how this looks or sounds. But the rousing music is now more of a funeral dirge for things like craft or originality. There are some moments of entertainment, and Simba's journey still has many instances of pathos throughout. You might even enjoy watching this unfold if you've never seen the first version (which wasn't without it's own troubling origins as a 'new' IP). But this just feels kind of weird and creepy, and makes me regret my positive thoughts on Jon Favreau's Jungle Book remake. It's a stunning example of modern advances in film making post production. Now please don't ever do it again.
1/5
