Hell Boy: First of all, how dare you

By Catherine Engstrom-Hadley
Staff Writer

Rating: D+

See it if: You love gore

Skip it if: You loved the comic, or you love yourself

If you have ever watched “The Godfather,” there is a scene where Vito Corleone is shown his son’s corpse, to which he says, in a state of shock and grief, “Look at how they massacred my boy!” This scene encapsulates all of my thoughts watching this year’s “Hellboy.”

As a reboot, the movie opens on King Arthur banishing the blood queen Nimue (Milla Jovovich), who swears to return and open the gates of hell. Years later, we find the titular character, Hellboy (David Harbour), hunting down a coworker in Tijuana who gets a message that the end is near—and he is the key.

Although the plot stayed true to its comic book storyline, “Hellboy” failed to do it justice. The thing about this movie, and maybe the more shocking part for myself, was that the storyline and acting wasn’t bad.

This movie was, for lack of a better word, gross. I lost count at six eyeball stabs. I get it: the need to set this movie apart from “Deadpool,” but good God, at what cost? If director Neil Marshall would have toned down the gore, they might have skated into a sequel. But no, they had to be edgy.

This movie feels like watching someone play “Doom.” Gross, bloody and boring.

The CGI and makeup was poorly done. At one point, near the start of the movie I could clearly see the mask struggling to hang on Hellboy’s face. Ten minutes in, and I’m already missing Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman. The monsters from hell are extremely yonic; people in the theater were laughing.

The best parts of this movie were Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) and Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane). They deserved a better movie for how well they acted in “Hellboy.” David Harbour’s portrayal of Hellboy landed flat; he came off more as a whiny teenager than the character he was trying to capture.

This film was clearly set up for a sequel. I will be interested to see if they go forward with the series. I would love to see a sequel with more Daimio and Monaghan, and way less gore. But I will not be revisiting this one any time soon, that’s for sure.