Review of Hellboy (2019) by Hnestlyonthesly — 07 Oct 2019

The reboot of Hellboy is the first time this year that I seriously started questioning my own judgement. Directed and written by two guys who have virtually no credits to their name and abandoned by the visionary, Guillermo del Toro, who made it possible in the first place, it’s hard for me to recreate the headspace I must have been in not just to walk into this movie but to have reserved seats for this film weeks ahead of time like a little **** Daniel Dae Kim is in this though man, David Harbour–you love that dude from Stranger Things–Milla Jovovich hasn’t aged a day, **** Odin is in this **** man, I must have said to myself before a truly mirthless two hours of exposition.

It’s hard to imagine now that we’re on the eve of possibly the biggest opening for a Marvel movie ever, there was a time when this was a big priority for me, but pickings were slim and we were undaunted by the 9-12% rotten rating it was receiving ahead of its wide release.

There are aspects of the film that even with the distance of two weeks I still find baffling. Like, why did the trailer place so much emphasis on a throwaway scene in the last two minutes of the actual movie? And, is that brilliant or confoundingly stupid? Why did the father-son conversation have to happen when Prof Broom was dead through a medium who inflates her organs into balloon people? Why was the Merlin scene essential at all? Did he need to come back only to shout at Hellboy for failing? And what reward did the witches who are holding that twig crown in that first Arthurian scene receive that’s so worth betraying Nimue? Because they seem to be skulking around real quiet-like with very little to show for by the time of contemporary events.

I’m left a little bit mad at myself for not having seen Missing Link or stayed home and flossed.