I don't really get the intense vitriol directed at the 2019 _Hellboy_. I mean it's not especially good, it's certainly worse than both del Toro movies, but the absolute dogpiling it got doesn't seem 100% warranted to me. There does seem to be a lot of mismatches in the developmental process that are very apparent in the final product though. _Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._

I may not be a big fan of Guillermo Del Toro (talented filmmaker but I don't stand at attention with his every project), yet his visual flair was on display with 2004's Hellboy, something that was sorely lacking in this reboot. Also lacking was Ron Perlman's stellar charm, something David Harbour, fine actor and all, didn't possess underneath the comic-accurate make-up and prosthetics. But beyond all that, this was an ugly movie with no creativity and, quite frankly, outright dull at times even during the action scenes. It was only two hours but felt so much longer, happy to see it flopped at the box office.

If Guillermo del Toro’s version of Hellboy is the imaginative grand symphony, this version is the discordant heavy metal little brother. Based on “The Wild Hunt” and “The Storm and the Fury” storylines in the comics doesn’t save it, either. Lacking the Del Toro’s vision, the character and monster designs are pedantic at best. David Harbour plays the titular infernal hero and while at first the costume design seems grittier than Ron Perlman’s Hellboy, it becomes clear very quickly that, while Perlman became the character and almost seemed to meld with his costume, Harbour seems to be fighting his costume. It’s like watching one of the most uncomfortable and anxiety-ridden wrestling matches one can imagine. I kind of felt sorry for Harbour as he’s a good actor with the right material, but he got handed such terrible material to work with. To his credit, it’s clear that he does try to sell it, but when you’re selling crap, it’s still crap. The characters come off more as caricatures. Their relationships are so basic and one-dimensional even if they exist that we find that we don’t really care. And that’s the major problem. The stakes aren’t built up enough to make us care. It’s a good versus evil comic-book film and we don’t really care whether the good guys live or if the bad guys win. Making the audience care and identify with the characters should be the bread and butter of “Hellboy.” Instead, we’re given a cracker and told to run along and play. Don’t bother unless you are a major fan of the comics or the actors and simply HAVE to see it. Even then, you might want to consider steering clear as it could taint your love for these.

Horrible. "If humans didn't kill monsters, maybe monsters wouldn't be that bad." I guess, maybe, the good thing I can say about this movie is that, if you are part of the "everything has to be political all the time," crowd...it injects the obligatory The Last Jedi woke politics...just to make sure everyone won't complain that there wasn't a political injection in a super hero movie. But then, that's kind of a trope of all bad movies lately. Really though, from the start it makes a point to bore the audience to death with not one, but fiver separate introductions that drag on for far to long and introduce us to concepts and characters that have, well, absolutely nothing to do with the movie. And then to rush it's way through the second act--that the audience probably would have been interested in if they hadn't rushed their way through it, assuring that, by the time the conclusion comes around everyone is sufficiently bored and irritated enough not to care or really even be amused at what should be the bulk of the action and the most exciting part of the film. In other words, it's the type of movie that people are tempted to walk out of.

Where do I start? Not since Derek Jarman at his most outlandish, have I seen so many people leave a screening mid-film. With Jarman that was almost certainly because his style of film-making and storytelling had a profoundly polarising effect; not so here - it was purely, and simply, because the film is terrible. I have always struggled to quite get why Ian McShane (a bit like Clive Owen) gets film roles - he always comes across as "Lovejoy" what ever the part is. Harbour and Javovich bring nothing to the party, either. I think this is my turkey of the year (and possibly last year, too). It would have to be an exceedingly long flight before I would recommend anyone go near this dross - and make sure you drink the bar dry, first!