The R-rated Hellboy is a comedically gory but otherwise not particularly funny reboot of the comic book character (previously brought to PG-13-rated life by Ron Perlman and director Guillermo del Toro), a red-skinned, horned demon who works with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense to keep other monsters under control. The big guy's played by David Harbour this time (Netflix’s
Stranger Things), directed by Neil Marshall (
Doomsday) but overseen by about a thousand producers and studio suits who pecked it into a barely coherent mush. The screenplay, by first-timer Andrew Crosby (creator of TV’s
Eureka), is all over the place, involving Nazis, witches, King Arthur and numerous flashbacks. There are some fantastic fairy tale monsters and outrageously bloody battles therewith, and Milla Jovovich is campy fun as the villain. But we never get a sense of Hellboy’s personality—he’s not quite a smart-aleck, not quite a dumb guy, not bent on revenge or justice or anything—and the humor is blunt and obvious (e.g., “Somebody get me a mint!” after giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a nasty old crone). Send this one back to hell and let it cook a while longer. It’s not done yet.
By
Eric D. Snider