Hellboy

Harbour does a great job in this film playing the anti-hero Hellboy. The script was not great and after reading reviews I thought it would be garbage. There are enough redeeming qualities to watch this movie in theaters. It has solid action sequences with plenty of gore. It's disappointing critics tore it apart. I give it a solid 7 it's entertaining just try not to take anything away from it and enjoy the ride.

I really like the character of Hellboy with his little John McClane side, i.e. « I did not ask to be here, but as I am stuck here, please let me smash them all, one by one, just to have a little fun », and the dark atmosphere. The soundtrack is punchy and punk rock. At last, the Computer Generated Imagery is globally successful. For now: that's heavy! Nevertheless, the story is so predictable and terribly far-fetched. In short: desperately annoying. It's really an uninterrupted series of dismemberments, decapitation and eye-gouging delights during manifold battles against apocalyptic monsters. These scenes are strung together at a blistering pace for one disappointing purpose: make you forget an incoherent script full of moronic plot twists. Well, well, well, ... another film without much interest than we will quickly forget.

I really like Hellboy, and liked this movie a lot. I also liked the Del Toro movies, but this movie is more similar to the comics. It has fun action and I enjoyed the ride. CGI wasn't great, but I didn't bother me too much.

Even though some critics thought it might. Now this had a bad standing from the beginning. And while the actors are quite nice and the R-rating was secured (something fan boys really wished for), it did not make nearly as much money as it was supposed to. Or rather as much as the producers and the studio hoped for overall.

And while this is layed out to warrant sequels, this probably won't happen. And it's almost a shame, because it isn't at all bad. The effects are good, the new Hellboy managed to stay afloat (which is quite an achievement if you think about the shoes he had to fill - or is it the horns?) - the story made sense too. But I guess there is a comic book fatigue to a degree. There are so many movies out there, that people pick and choose. Maybe there were other reasons too, but in the end it doesn't really matter ... speaking of endings: there is one mid credit scene and one after credit scene. So if you watch it, watch it proper

517 A.D.: King Arthur defeats the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich) with the help of his trusty magical sword Excalibur, chopping her into pieces and burying her still-living body parts in the far reaches of the land. 1500 years later, changeling Gruagach (voiced by Stephen Graham) pieces the queen back together so that she can destroy mankind and rule the Earth with monsters as her loyal subjects. Hellboy (David Harbour) is given the job of preventing this from happening.

The majority of fans and critics gave this film hell on its release. So what did it do to deserve such damnation?

For many, the simple fact that it wasn't directed by Guillermo Del Toro and didn't star Ron Perlman was enough to demonise the movie, but even overlooking the change of director and leading man, there is still plenty to dislike: the creature-filled action scenes are over-reliant on unrealistic CGI; the comedy frequently mis-fires; Daniel Dae Kim and Sasha Lane are lousy as Hellboy's sidekicks; and the plot is rather scattershot. Oh, and there's a REALLY bad ectoplasmic Ian McShane.

Having said that, there is also quite a lot to enjoy: the R-Rating allows for plenty of graphic gore (although, sadly, much of it is also digital); there are some delightfully absurd moments (Hellboy's encounter with hideous witch Baba Yaga, who lives in a house on giant chicken legs, is excellent, and Eastenders fans will enjoy seeing Mo Harris brandishing a machine gun); the links to Arthurian legend are fun, and apparently make the film more faithful to the comics than Del Toro's movies; and director Neil Marshall occasionally shows us what he is really capable of (the single-shot fight scene in a Siberian complex at the end of the film is wonderful).

All in all, a very mixed bag of a movie: not the completely hellish experience that I had heard it was, but far from great.