"Hellboy (2019)" review

That boy can stay in hell if this is what he's gonna come back to do.

David Harbour inherits the filed down horns and ginormous fist of the titular demon superhero of “Hellboy (2019),” as he assembles a crew of specialists networked with the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, or BPRD, in order to eliminate the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich), an immortal witch seeking to unite paranormal creature to overthrow the humans and establish a new world order by dominating those they see as their inferiors while forcing Hellboy himself to question the ethics of policing the paranormal community at the behest of those that seem to fear and despise them.

Raising a multitude of questions regarding the nature of fear mongering against “the other” and how much free will defines us in measurement against our origins and life circumstances, “Hellboy (2019)” carries a lot of tropes of speculative fiction that could decently set itself apart from the shadow of the Guillermo Del Toro helmed legacy that it finds itself in.

Unfortunately, despite bearing the namesake of the Dark Horse comic book franchise similarly to the 2004 film in hopes of rebooting it into something distinct and successful, “Hellboy (2019)” ultimately feels more like what its infinitely better predecessors would have become had it been allowed a string of bad direct to video sequels of decreasing quality that would inevitably play on Saturday afternoons on the Syfy Channel in between airings of “Highlander” sequels and “Scorpion King 5.”

That isn’t to say that the film only sucks in comparison to its predecessors but when held up against the confident, sincere, genre reverent, fairytale-esque Del Toro “Hellboy” films, which may have been niche in the appeal of their cheeky and mischievous sensibilities but at least had a unique and admirable sense of identity, this one is really transparent in its cynicism, lack of inspiration, and downright arrogance almost to the point of being repulsive.

“Hellboy (2019)” isn’t quite a terrible movie; it moves at a decent enough clip to prevent boredom from taking hold, it has one action set-piece involving Hellboy fighting giants that’s downright badass in isolation, and all credit where it’s due, the cast really does show up to work.

David Harbour had a lot to live up to but while he ultimately pursues a Hellboy that’s noticeably distinct from Pearlman’s young stoner college party kid vibe, he pulls off a memorable portrayal as Big Red by playing up the teenager in the body of a middle aged man angle to gloriously humorous and compelling effect.

Ditto for Ian McShane’s take on Professor Broom, who loves his demon son but isn’t afraid to use sarcasm and discipline to knock some sense into him as need be. He’s far sterner than the late John Hurt was in the role but nevertheless endearing and newcomers Ben Daimio and Alice feel right at home in the mythology playing out onscreen.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much where the positives end as the film’s inability to dip into horrendous filmmaking don’t disguise how obvious it is that nobody on the production end was putting their heart into this project.

From the opening flashback sequences that play out like a misfired Monty Python skit generated through a bad adlibbing AI program, to the inability of the film to define whether or not the paranormal is widely recognized or still a secret, punctuated by inconsistent reactions to whether or not Hellboy is a welcome sight to the bystanders or a tool to be kept hidden from the public, just about every level of storytelling comes across as half baked and passionless.

The movie presents a threat that is functionally disconnected from its central protagonist, yet it stops to regurgitate Hellboy’s origins several times with production values so bad they’re almost laughable, for almost no reason, resulting in them feeling like an unwieldy tumor on the rest of the film, joined by a series of similar scenes cobbled together into this janky mess of underdeveloped and unnaturally coincidental events this movie dares to call a story.

Lest anybody think that the film could be saved by spectacle, even that is lacking.

Neil Marshall is a terrific director but his horror movie sensibilities sadly fail him in an action oriented setting, as the few moments showcasing decent set-pieces, such as aforementioned giant fight above, are bloated apart by mixtures of narrative nonsense, bad jokes galore, and heaping piles of downright senseless gore that almost feel like a 12 year old’s perception of what an R-rated movie is supposed to be.

I’d have loved to see the proper conclusion to Del Toro’s “Hellboy” saga as much as the next fan of tragically underperforming critical darlings but be forewarned that this film is not the fix you seek.

Even if you can look past the cocky and disenchanting producer driven calculations of how to edge out whatever cinematic uniqueness this series had for the sake of repackaging it as another dime-a-dozen comic book film franchise for the sole purpose of having a franchise, there’s almost nothing in this film worth the time and effort to watch it, nor the admirable efforts of its cast trying and failing to make it worthwhile, from the awkward opening scenes to the final scene before cutting to credits, which has the audacity to tease at a sequel with something that probably should have been in this very film to begin with.

“Hellboy (2019)” is the trashier, watered down, focus group tested, mass market, and infinitely more flavorless version of something that already exists but its ultimate sin is that it couldn’t even salvage the handful of good ideas that it does have to be a modestly entertaining version of that very thing, which is a knock off of a 15 year old movie you can still stream on Netflix.

4 Demon Turds out of 10