HELLBOY (2019)

Studio:      Lionsgate
Director:    Neil Marshall
Writer:      Andrew Cosby
Producer:  Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Mike Richardson, Philip Westgren, Carl Hampe, Matt O’Toole, Les Weldon, Yariv Lerner
Stars:     David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Stephen Graham, Daniel Dae Kim, Thomas Haden Church

Review Score:

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Summary:

Aided by his adoptive father, a psychic medium, and a shapeshifting special agent, Hellboy battles an ancient witch descended from a war with King Arthur.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Pendle Hill, Britain – 517 A.D. – Following a long war between the armies of man and creatures of darkness, King Arthur and Merlin destroy immortal witch Vivian Nimue, also known as ‘The Blood Queen,’ before she can eradicate humanity with her plague. Arthur decapitates Nimue, who was betrayed by her witch sister Ganeida, with Excalibur beneath an oak tree. Arthur cuts Nimue into pieces and has his knights hide her body parts where no one can find them.

Tijuana, Mexico – Present Day – On an extraction assignment from his adoptive father Professor Trevor Broom, Hellboy finds fellow Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) agent Esteban Ruiz transformed into a winged vampire disguised as lucha libre wrestler Camazotz. During their match, Hellboy inadvertently impales Ruiz on a ring post. Before dying, Ruiz cryptically warns, “the end is coming.”

Colorado – Agents Madison and Strode take Hellboy back to BPRD HQ. After his debriefing, Broom sends Hellboy to England to assist Broom’s occult society colleagues The Osiris Club on a mission to hunt three rogue giants.

At The Osiris Club, Hellboy meets Lord Adam Glaren, Dr. Edwin Carp, August Swain, and psychic Lady Hatton. Lady Hatton recounts Hellboy’s origin, which he did not previously know.

At the close of World War Two, the Nazis had necromancer Grigori Rasputin invoke an ancient occult ritual to fulfill a prophecy regarding the end of mankind. Famed Nazi hunter Lobster Johnson interrupted the ritual with a raid. The Allies discovered Hellboy at the center of the summoning circle. Rather than destroy him like he was supposed to, Professor Broom decided to raise Hellboy into a weaponized force for good.

St. Sebastian’s Abbey – As part of a collaborative plot for revenge against Hellboy initiated by the witch Baba Yaga, changeling boar Gruagach slaughters scores of monks to retrieve Nimue’s hidden head. Gruagach continues collecting pieces of Nimue for a witch coven to sew back together.

Hellboy learns the giant hunt disguised an assassination plot when Lord Glaren tries to kill him. Before Glaren can murder Hellboy however, the giants slaughter Glaren and his men. Hellboy kills the three giants.

Hellboy recovers in an apartment belonging to psychic medium Alice Monaghan. Hellboy later recounts how he rescued Alice as an infant when she was kidnapped by fairies and replaced with Gruagach, which is why Gruagach now wants revenge.

Broom warns Hellboy that Nimue is being reconstructed. Broom assigns Hellboy to work with Major Ben Daimio, the head of M-11 Special Ops, who is cursed to transform into a jaguar-like creature unless he administers regular injections. Hellboy insists that Alice join them.

Hellboy, Daimio, and Alice find everyone at The Osiris Club slaughtered. Alice communicates with Lady Hatton’s spirit. Lady Hatton warns Hellboy’s true destiny will be revealed when Nimue reconstitutes to search for a king to join her.

Hellboy tries to stop Gruagach from stealing Nimue’s arm, which The Osiris Club had been protecting. Hellboy becomes distracted by a vision of Nimue, who entrances Hellboy with an appeal about humans and monsters coexisting. Gruagach escapes.

While Hellboy and Alice research Nimue with Broom in the M-11 secret headquarters beneath London’s Codswallop fish and chips shop, Daimio secretly obtains a special bullet for assassinating Hellboy. An argument with Broom about peace between humans and monsters causes Hellboy to storm off alone to the elevator.

Through the elevator, Baba Yaga transports Hellboy to her netherworld for a confrontation. Baba Yaga bargains to tell Hellboy where to find Nimue in exchange for one of Hellboy’s eyes to replace the one he tore out of her in a previous encounter. Hellboy agrees. Baba Yaga tells him Nimue will be at Pendle Hill to reclaim her blood from the oak tree. Hellboy reneges on his end of the deal. Baba Yaga curses Hellboy and banishes him back to M-11 HQ.

Monsters gather around Pendle Hill to celebrate Nimue’s resurrection. While Daimio and Alice fight off zombies, Hellboy confronts Nimue and Gruagach atop the hill. Nimue tells Hellboy they belong together, adding that she wants Hellboy to usher in the apocalypse as her king.

Alice arrives. Nimue fires a poison quill into Alice’s neck before escaping into a vortex with Gruagach. Acting under an earlier instruction from Nimue, Ganeida tells Hellboy that only Merlin’s magic can save Alice.

Following Ganeida’s directions, Hellboy and Daimio take Alice to Merlin’s cursed crypt. Merlin heals Alice. Merlin then reveals that King Arthur’s bloodline lives through Hellboy because his human mother, a descendant of Arthur, married a demon and birthed him. Merlin uses his magic to summon Excalibur for Hellboy to use in defeating Nimue.

When he touches the sword’s hilt, Hellboy sees a troubling vision of himself as a deadly fire warrior from Hell. Afraid of his destiny, Hellboy releases his grip and refuses to take the sword. Excalibur disappears. Merlin laments using the last of his magic to summon the sword before crumbling into dust.

Nimue begins destroying England with her plague. Nimue also invades M-11 HQ where she captures Broom and slaughters the rest of the BPRD on site.

Hellboy, Alice, and Daimio in his jaguar form fight Gruagach inside an old church. Nimue kills Gruagach to prevent him from killing Hellboy.

Hellboy falls through the church’s floor to find himself in King Arthur’s tomb alongside Excalibur. Nimue wants Hellboy to take the sword, but he still hesitates. Nimue kills Broom in front of Hellboy. Enraged by Broom’s death, Hellboy pulls Excalibur from its stone and becomes the flame warrior seen in his vision. At the same time, giant creatures rise from Hell to rampage throughout London.

Nimue calls for Hellboy to join her as her king. Daimio prepares to shoot Hellboy with the bullet made from Judas silver when Alice channels Broom’s spirit. Broom appeals to the good inside Hellboy. Hellboy beheads Nimue. The creatures return to the underworld. Hellboy drops Nimue’s head into Hell.

Hellboy confronts Broom about his troublesome inner beast. Broom explains that he doesn’t regret his decision to allow Hellboy to live. Broom’s spirit expresses love for Hellboy before disappearing. Daimio discards his bullet.

Siberia – Six Months Later – Hellboy, Daimio, and Alice fight their way through a building where they find a water tank containing Abe Sapien. Later, a drunken Hellboy encounters Lobster Johnson’s ghost at Professor Broom’s grave. Elsewhere, Baba Yaga tasks an unseen entity with going after Hellboy in exchange for allowing the entity to die.

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Review:

“Hellboy” 2019 never stood a chance. Before production began, pockets of fandom decried the project as an inferior imposter when it was little more than a mere announcement. They had already decided the soft reboot was a sacrilegious affront to Guillermo del Toro, who had long lobbied very vocally to complete his cinematic trilogy begun in 2004 with Ron Perlman in the title role. Studio suits didn’t share that side’s passion for del Toro’s return, opting for a different path that displeased the director’s disciples. For them, “Hellboy” 2019 would suck no matter what, even if they had to manipulate after-the-fact opinions to fit a desired narrative of negativity.

Brouhaha harangued “Hellboy” on its backend too. With trade papers looking for sparks to explain the fire of underwhelming box office returns, insiders told tales out of school about discontent on set. Director Neil Marshall reportedly clashed creatively with producers Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin over significant decisions such as firing cinematographer Sam McCurdy all the way down to dismissible dust-ups over the design of a tree. Critically and commercially, “Hellboy” was a bona fide bomb, and stakeholders seemed to be passing blame via rumors to wash their hands of responsibility.

What of the movie that exists in between those bothersome bookends? It’s too bad hardheads don’t give it a fair shake and creators appear quick to downplay it as disappointing. Divorced from behind-the-scenes baggage, “Hellboy” stands independently as an eye candy epic of frightening fantasy enthusiastically embracing pure comic book carnage.

Heading off the first vulnerability at the pass, smart casting preemptively takes the wind out of “what about?” complaints by giving David Harbour the Right Hand of Doom. Harbour isn’t quite on the same level of fan favoritism as Ron Perlman yet. But his breakout role as Hopper on “Stranger Things” puts him in the same category of lovable gruffness as his predecessor. It’s impossible to write off David Harbour out of hand precisely because of what his appealing personality brings to the role.

Ditto Ian McShane. John Hurt’s shoes aren’t any easier to fill. Yet “Deadwood’s” Al Swearengen uses his signature hard-assed edge to cut a sharper take on Hellboy’s dad than Hurt’s kinder interpretation had. Having two no-nonsense men charging the positive and negative nodes of “Hellboy’s” battery sends a signal from the start that the movie intends to take no prisoners in its uncompromising approach to R-rated action.

Thankfully for those of us who’ve been around Hellboy’s block before, this restart doesn’t rehash Big Red’s history any more than necessary for this specific story. Hellboy’s origin as a Nazi-summoned hellspawn receives only quick flashbacks to put a wedge between Hellboy and Broom while setting up his connection to immortal witch Nimue, the plot’s Big Bad.

The movie isn’t as merciful when it comes to establishing everyone else. Hellboy’s background may not receive detailed treatment, but all three acts still choke on exhausting amounts of information. People include King Arthur, Merlin, two different occult societies, two different psychic mediums, a special agent who transforms into a jaguar, a fairy familiar who transforms into a boar, and witches with varying degrees of deformities. Places include Tijuana, Colorado, England, Scotland, Siberia, and two ethereal underworlds. There is a lot to retain in your brain and that list only scratches the skin.

At least “Hellboy” generally coughs up its nearly nonstop exposition quickly. The movie rarely feels the drag of its two-hour runtime, breezing through setup scenes with breathless narration so it can keep copious creatures on a conveyor belt of almost constant hacking and slashing.

Once exposition jumps out of the way, an eye for eerie extravagance persistently populates the screen with a wild menagerie of monsters. Particularly during its finale, “Hellboy” turns into a pretty spectacular horror show loaded with zombies, giants, fire dragons, hairy winged vampires, and big beasts I’m not sure there are names for. I was going to describe the movie as a series of “violent vignettes” until I saw The Associated Press said it first. The difference is they used the term as a derogatory criticism whereas I think it succinctly sums up “Hellboy’s” strength as a straight shot of bloody battling focused on the fun side of cinematic spectacle.

For diehards to whom this matters, I saw the previous two Hellboy movies in their respective release years and have read only a handful of Mike Mignola’s comics. My investment in the IP is minimal and my memories of Hellboy’s other incarnations are not remotely fresh. This leaves me able to sit back, relax, and enjoy “Hellboy” without any burdens of unfair expectations or prejudicial preconceptions.

I guess anyone can hate “Hellboy” for what it isn’t. It’s not Guillermo del Toro’s vision. If scuttlebutt can be believed, it may not even be Neil Marshall’s vision, or Mike Mignola’s for that matter. Maybe it uses too much CGI and not enough practical effects. Maybe it’s not an especially rich story based on a faithful adaptation either. Frankly, what it “isn’t” doesn’t concern me.

I’d rather appreciate “Hellboy” for what it is. It’s a slaughter-soaked slice of monster mania made to dazzle entranced eyes while inducing wicked snickers. There’s hollowness to that fact that understandably won’t appease everyone’s preferences. Simply set aside sulking over what might have been in an alternate timeline however, and there’s an amazing amount of enjoyment to be had with a bag of Skittles in one hand and a favorite beverage in the other.

NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene and a post-credits scene.

Review Score: 75

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