Hellboy (2004-2008)/Hellboy (2019)

HELLBOY (12)

D: Guillermo del Toro

Columbia/Revolution/Dark Horse (Lawrence Gordon, Mike Richardson & Lloyd Levin)

US 2004

122 mins

Action/Adventure/Fantasy

W: Guillermo del Toro [based on characters created by Mike Mignola]

DP: Guillermo Navarro

Ed: Peter Amundson

Mus: Marco Beltrami

PD: Stephen Scott

Cos: Wendy Partridge

Ron Perlman (Hellboy), John Hurt (Trevor Bruttenholm), Selma Blair (Liz Sherman), Rupert Evans (John Thaddeus Myers), Karel Roden (Grigori Rasputin), Jeffrey Tambor (Tom Manning)

Guillermo del Toro is the perfect choice of director for this dark comic-book fantasy, bringing his own gothic imagination into the fold with the help of impressive and exuberant production design, costume design and makeup.

Hellboy is a demon, conjured from a Nazi experiment with black magic at the end of World War II, rescued and raised by the American government to fight the forces of evil.

Ron Perlman brings a good bit of personality and fun to the red-skinned brute with blunted horns and the special effects throughout are generally decent, particularly the excellent makeup effects.

A sequel followed in 2008.

6/10

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY (12)

D: Guillermo del Toro

Universal/Relativity Media/Dark Horse (Lawrence Gordon, Mike Richardson & Lloyd Levin)

US 2008

120 mins

Action/Adventure/Fantasy

W: Guillermo del Toro & Mike Mignola [based on characters created by Mike Mignola]

DP: Guillermo Navarro

Ed: Bernat Vilaplana

Mus: Danny Elfman

Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Selma Blair (Liz Sherman), Doug Jones (Abe Saipen), Luke Goss (Prince Nuada Silverlance), John Hurt (Trevor Bruttenholm)

The cigar smoking, candy bar chomping, demonic superhero returns in this sequel, as he, his pyro-kinetic girlfriend and his aquatic mutant ally take on an underground race who plan on taking over the world with the aid of an almost indestructible army.

The story here is a little weaker than the original film, and there's a slight lack of comic relief, but this is made up for with an abundance of action scenes and excellent visual effects, particularly in the field of makeup, for which it received an Oscar nomination.

6/10

Ron Perlman & Doug Jones in Hellboy: The Golden Army

HELLBOY (15)

D: Neil Marshall

Lionsgate/Millennium Media/Dark Horse/Nu Boyana (Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Mike Richardson, Philip Westgren, Carl Hampe, Matt O'Toole, Les Weldon & Yariv Lerner)

USA 🇺🇸 2019

121 mins

Fantasy/Action/Adventure

W: Andrew Cosby [based on characters created by Mike Mignola]

DP: Lorenzo Sanatore

Ed: Martin Bernfeld

Mus: Benjamin Wallfisch

David Harbour (Hellboy), Milla Jovovich (Blood Queen), Ian McShane (Trevor Bruttenholm), Sasha Lane (Alice Monaghan), Daniel Dee Kim (Ben Daimio), Stephen Graham (voice of Gruagach)

Hell would be a perfectly accurate description of my viewing experience of this poorly-conceived reboot, 15 years after the character was originally brought to the screen with Guillermo Del Toro's gothic style and vision.

This time around Neil Marshall takes the directorial reins, and it's fair to say that the tone throughout doesn't quite know what it wants to be, fluctuating between dark fantasy, comic-book camp and cartoonish violence and never really having a voice of its own as it pits the demon superhero against a witch with a mysterious connection to Arthurian legend.

Unfortunately, the plot is a complete mess, held together by a handful of action scenes full of ropey CGI, loud crashes and bloody violence. David Harbour, in the lead role, does the best he can with what he's given, but neither he nor his impressive makeup can overcome the scripts inadequacies.

The worst thing, by far, about this mess of a film is the voice performance of Stephen Graham, which just feels so awkwardly out of place. It's not a surprise that the film flopped on its cinema run. It's a turkey.

3/10