Hellboy (2019)

 1/4

Starring: David Harbour, Sasha Lane, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Daniel Dae Kim

Rated R for Strong Bloody Violence and Gore Throughout, and Language

Watching the pathetic 2019 reboot of "Hellboy" is a depressing experience.  There's a lot of special effects and gore (especially the gore) on display, but this is a hollow, cheerless bore.  There's not much life or energy to be found here, and that makes it impossible to care about what's going on.  Even if it is standard comic book stuff.

Hellboy (Harbour) is the worst kept secret of the United States government.  Officially he's a secret weapon against fairies, giants and other ne'er-do-wells in fantasy lore, but everyone knows about him.  Kinda hard to go incognito when you look like you've been on the beach for a week with no sunscreen and have sheared horns and a stone arm.  A hoodie isn't going to hide you too well (even in Tijuana).  Anyway, he's been called to Britain for a special mission.  A talking, foul-mouthed pig (voice of Stephen Graham) is trying to resurrect Nimue, the Blood Witch (Jovovich) for reasons that are never fully explained.  Unfortunately, doing so would wipe out humanity.  Now Hellboy, his close friend, a seer named Alice (Lane) and a suspicious government agent named Daimio (Kim) and his father figure Professor Broom (McShane) team up to take her down.

After the success of the first two "Hellboy" films from Guillermo del Toro and starring Ron Perlman, fans wanted another one.  But it was eternally stuck in development hell and the decision was made to reboot it.  It was a bad decision.  Although I won't say that the first two "Hellboy" films were that good, Perlman brought a mixture of intensity, vulnerability and gravitas that David Harbour can't match.  Harbour is a good actor, but he couldn't make me wish for Perlman.  The actor does have his moments, bringing a sort of wounded petulance to some scenes that show what the film could have been if it had capitalized on them.  But it doesn't.

At least his co-stars are more interesting.  Not that they have much to do.  Sasha Lane, star of the wonderful indie film "American Honey" (a film I strongly encourage you to see instead of this one), is a sparkler as Alice.  She brings a presence and energy to the film that Harbour lacks.  Daniel Dae Kim and Ian McShane are their usual reliable selves.

One wonders what happened to Neil Marshall on this stinker.  Marshall is one of the best talents working in gory genre flicks.  His debut, "Dog Soldiers," displayed his promise as a horror filmmaker, but it was his next film, "The Descent," that showed his true talents.  And "Centurion," the adventure film with Michael Fassbender, was not to be discounted.  So what went wrong?  Personally, I don't fully blame him. The film was taken out of his hands after he turned in his cut.  But maybe he's just not cut out for comic book movies because there are so many problems here that he has to be given at least some of the blame.

There are moments that do work.  A joke lands every now and then, and the bloody climax has its pleasures.  But really, this movie is a bomb.

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