Now we’ve got an edgier, R-rated brightly red hero
in a film that can best be described as tedious.
This “Hellboy” stars the always likeable David
Harbour of “Stranger Things” in a film even
his charm can’t save. It’s really series of violent
vignettes strung together, getting more and more
outlandish and introducing characters at such a
blistering pace that you just want it to stop already.
Casual fans or the uninitiated are in trouble right
from the beginning. Andrew Cosby’s screenplay
doesn’t unspool a coherent story so much as
violently shoehorn in diverse elements from the
comics, overstuffing every scene and only then
trying to explain why it’s been included. Director
Neil Marshall leaves anyone not familiar with this
world grasping and gasping. Scenes seem to just
end abruptly, as if Marshall was the one trapped
in story panels. A fight sequence with three
giants is really the only astonishingly realized bit
in the whole film. (It looks like a different set of
filmmakers made it).
What you need to know is that Hellboy is a devil
who ends up working for the good guys, the
Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.
(These civil servants aren’t too good at their
job, by the way: They find out that one of their
enemies is causing chaos on the streets outside
— from watching Sky News.)
Hellboy is basically a monster who hunts
monsters, rejecting his DNA by cutting off his
horns and stalking around in a ratty raincoat with
no shirt. He deals with sorcery and ancient curses,
utters strip club jokes, hears standard comic book
lines — “Revenge is the only sustenance I require”
— and has a hand in gore, beheadings, eyes
gouged out and deep ugliness.