Hellboy (2019)
Legendary AF
The new expansion to Monster Hunter: World comes out today for us PC-using folks, and I’m a little psyched up about it, so I reorganized the movie queue a bit for something more mood-suitable. What’s better prep than a movie about a monster of a (part) man doing battle with various monsters (including giants)? I also enjoyed the old Hellboy takes, so I figure despite loosing what those are it should still be an interesting thing to check out anyways - especially if it actually goes somewhere else with it to make itself feel like something worth having stand on it’s own two legs. Shave your horns and buff those revolvers, tonight we check out the 2019 version of Hellboy.
So the first impression here is that it was going to be a more edgy kind of movie - what with that R rating. That impression wasn’t wrong in the slightest - although perhaps not always edgy in that cringe-worthy sense that you would normally associate with someone calling something edgy. Here, it’s more like violent for violent’s sake - although it’s not always overdone, and it’s also not always thematically unnecessary either. There’s also a preference to dropping curses that will probably steer a few people away from the movie, because that’s also apparently a thing. You seeing where I’m coming from with that first impression? The only thing it’s missing is that emo “everything sucks” mood swing - oh wait, there some of those mood swings in this one too thanks to the nature of the main character. Heavens be thanked however, this isn’t some emo Peter Parker from the third movie, it’s usually quite reasonable when our boy hell gets upset or angry about something.
Story-wise, we get to fall back on something you’ll already be familiar with if you’ve seen the original movie attempt - beating up monsters as we get towards the end boss, all the while finding out that the end boss might be closer than anyone who isn’t in the know would expect. Does it make it stand out? Not really too much. Is it accurate to it’s source? Darned if I know - you people should know better than expect me to have knowledge of things that are adapted from something at this point. Still, the working of the King Arthur tale into the movie is a nice touch that I don’t recall the other batch of movies tackling, and it doesn’t feel super-heavy like an origin story as it’s only thrown at us in a flashback with some Nazi-vision and a few dynamics between the character and father figure. That being said, there is quite a bit of explaining of past things in the movie, in fact almost for every step of the movie - “oh I remember the days when we all fought Giants” and flashbacks to dangerous monsters in the jungles or that one time Hellboy saved a baby. It might put some folks off, but it never really feels that it interrupts the flow, as it ebbs back and forth in typical movie fashion.
Of course, the action scenes help punch up things when it might start feeling a bit slower. It looks good on screen, although perhaps can get understandably shaky at times. Often times, it will almost feel like they were designed with being an music video in mind, This comes to shine the most in the ending action scene - which is actually past the finale of the movie, and feels almost like one more harumph to stoke fires for a sequel more so than something that really needed to be there despite it being real fun. Still, there’s a nice mix of things, with a pretty good back and forth between those in the fights most the time, so it’s almost always fun to watch things unfold when the action kicks in - even in the incredibly out-of-nowhere Lobster Johnson Nazi-beat down flashback scene. If that last sentence didn’t already invoke the thought in your head - yeah, the movie hasn’t really gotten rid of all the camp and humor elements one would expect having seen the last batch of movies.
Nazi-vision!
Those jokes and lightheartedness don’t always necessarily hit it out in the field, and there will be some low hanging fruit in there - burping dead giants and “what did you eat” jokes for example. Humor is always gonna be a person to person thing though, so I can see it being a range of people feeling that perhaps there’s too much joking around to others barely even noticing it. Still, I’m a fan of witty banter or one-liners, so I found it to be a pleasant addition in the runtime and not all that poorly handled. Part of it comes down to actors, and the actors do a pretty good job here. Mostly anyone you see on screen is doing a good enough job that you won’t find yourself wishing they had different actors in here. Body language is pretty good across the board, and if anything the only thing that sort of hurts in the performance department is actually the facial prosthetics on Hellboy himself.
Now, most the effects in this movie are darn good - let me start off with that, because hot dang they are quite impressive. It’s not all sunshine and ultra-def high fidelity explosions though. The facial prosthetics make it quite hard for there to be any real emotion out of Hellboy - particularly in the mouth region. He does a good job with his eyes and mostly with the rest of the body language, but it does make for some moments that can look a bit odd if you focus on his mouth too much. The rest of the outfit looks pretty dang good - although the oversized arm has always looked a bit like an armature glove to me in all versions. Big deal? Not at all, and honestly it never really calls any attention to itself in this version, so if anything it’s even less of an issue than before. I do mention it do to the odd way a giant sword gets picked up at one point though, which is really the only time I questioned it at all. Most the creatures look fine, the fire looks good, the blood looks passable, and overall the thing looks good - with one real thing that should be called out. This movie was definitely in 3D. Now, I didn’t watch it in 3D - most the rental copies I’ve ever gotten don’t have that option at any rate - but there are many moments where it’s presented front and center ala classic movies where it was a gimmick. EYEBALL! Reaction shot. EYEBALL! You get the idea…
The other part I always like to talk about is audio, and boy does the soundtrack here want me to like it. Earworms? Maybe a few in there for people, but in general it’s some hard rocking stuff that I can get behind. It adds a lot of energy to most the scenes it’s in, but also doesn’t overwhelm the other audio elements into a lame submission of inaudible silence. You can hear things fine, there’s no lost words across the film, and most the inflections an actor tries to add in carry through as well. Winning a plethora of awards? Probably not, but it’s still some solid work here, especially from the person we see the most - Hellboy. He does a good job with delivering lines through all that red, and despite monsters and screaming and gunshots and magic, it all comes together very nicely with that rocking music to amp and deliver. Like I mentioned before - at times it might as well be a music video, because it would be darn good one.
Big monsters mean big weapons.
This is a fun movie. I’m not entirely sure why it didn’t seem to get any real love when it was in theaters - perhaps people were just too upset over the lack of Ron Perlman or something. Even then, IMDB has it only sitting at a 5.2 - and although yeah, it’s no masterpiece of a movie, it’s still highly entertaining. If you don’t like violence and cursing language, then perhaps you’d enjoy it at a much lower amount than others and I could perhaps see that lower rating being believable. If you enjoy action, rocking music, and some good effects then it’s a no brainer to check this out at some point. If you expect a super in-depth plot with award winning acting jobs then maybe your expectations are a bit higher than needed. Check it out as a rental easy if the other end of the spectrum doesn’t bother you, some might even find it worth a purchase.