Film Would’ve Worked Better as a Sequel
The big question I have about this film? Did it even need to be a reboot? I feel that it would have worked better as another installment in the Del Toro Hellboy canon, with Ron Perlman reprising the famous role. If it were a third film in the Del Toro series, we would have more time to develop the characters instead of retreading the Hellboy backstory with which we’re already familiar.
The plot as it’s told is very similar to the Del Toro films, in that it’s less one movie and more an episodic series of events tied around an overarching plot. The special effects are passable, about on par with other modern superhero movies, the jokes were quite funny, the action scenes served their purpose, the horror elements were genuinely terrifying, and the music is just meh.
As for the characters... well, I’m disappointed that Liz and Abe did not return for this film, as I felt they complimented Hellboy’s personality perfectly in the original films. Hellboy himself is not quite as interesting a character as in the original. I’m sure the new actor was trying his best, but he’s not written as sympathetically or as charismatically as the Perlman portrayal, instead being a Wangst-y grouch like Chris O’Donnell’s Robin. Furthermore, his female counterpart here seems to be just a watered-down rehash of Liz. On the other hand, Ben Daimio is a cool and likable character (Becuae how could anyone go wrong with British Werewolf Johnny Gat?) and Lobster Johnson FINALLY makes his silver screen debut — he doesn’t appear for very long, but he makes every second count. The Blood Queen poses a genuinely terrifying threat, but isn’t developed well.
Overall, it gets a 6/10 from me. It wasn’t great, but I’m still glad I saw it.
Film Truer to the Text, but worse in every way.
So, I finally got around to watching this movie, and... it's not the worst movie ever made, but... well, that kind of says it all, doesn't it?
Story and Characters (Spoilers Ahead)
I cannot for the life of me understand why they chose to adapt the Blood Queen arc as the first story arc. The Blood Queen is the penultimate arc in the comic, and it makes zero sense without the previous arcs' buildup.As a result, the movie is constantly making Call-Back after Call-Back, except they're not really Call Backs, because this is the first installment, so it relies on flashbacks and clumsy one-off mentions of prior events to get people up to speed, except it still leaves unexplained. The only reason I was able to comprehend this movie at all is that I've read the comics, without that context the movie has a borderline Random Events Plot.
They also change a considerable amount from the comics, things that individually wouldn't be that big of a deal, but together make it a cluttered mess. Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman have been Adapted Out. In theory, that shouldn't be a big deal since Abe and Liz were both Demoted to Extra during the Blood Queen arc... except that Hellboy never quits the B.P.R.D. in this movie (and why would he? They haven't done anything questionable at this point), so Abe and Liz have no real reason to not be here (more on this later).
In Abe and Liz's place are Ben Daimio and Alice Monaghan, the former being transplanted from the B.P.R.D. comics, and the latter being a major Ascended Extra who apparently has superpowers now, despite being a relatively normal human in the comics. She can commune with the dead, and also punch people's souls out of their bodies, like The Ancient One in Doctor Strange. The movie never gives any explanation on how she can do this beyond "IDK, fairies, I guess".
Both of them are just sort of there, they don't really do much to contribute to the plot, they just give Hellboy somebody to talk to. Alice does save Hellboy on one occasion, but it's a bit contrived since again the movie doesn't really give any explanation on how she found him beyond "the dead told her".
Daimio, in particular, is a weird choice to include, since his comic counterpart's story is heavily intertwined with Roger the Homonculus, another Adapted Out character, and Roger's story is heavily tied into Liz's story. Since they chose not to do any of that, Daimio's subplot is about him planning to kill Hellboy in case it turns out HB's evil. And by "subplot" I mean, it's mentioned literally twice in the entire movie, and he obviously doesn't go through with it.
Professor Bruttenholm is still alive at this point, as well, but he's completely different from his comic or del Toro film counterparts. The movie kinda plays him up as this former badass monster hunter, but he also doesn't really do anything except bicker with Hellboy. Hellboy and the Professor's strained relationship doesn't really make a lot of sense in the context of this movie, because Hellboy's not being locked up here, he's completely free to leave whenever he wants, just like in the comics.
The climax of the movie involves Bruttenholm telling Hellboy how much he loves him, but it falls flat on its face because he's been so antagonistic and dismissive towards him the entire movie, and he even insults him the entire time he's telling him that he loves him (All the characters in this movie seem to hate each other)!
There's a brief mention of Bruttenholm and the Osiris Club aging at a slower rate than normal humans. It goes absolutely nowhere, and at first, I thought it was just to justify casting a younger actor for Bruttenholm, but Ian McShane is actually thirteen years older than John Hurt was when he was cast, so I have no idea what the point was.
Another consequence of adapting a late-story arc this early is that the movie constantly makes mention of people distrusting Hellboy, except The Right Hand of Doom is never given an explanation, and so Hellboy's nature as the harbinger of the apocalypse is never brought up, so nobody has any real reason to think he's any danger.
The movie ends with three consecutive Sequel Hooks, none of which are going to go anywhere, obviously.
The first is a Time Skip to six months after Hellboy defeats Nimue, where he, Alice (now a full-time B.P.R.D. agent) and Daimio raid an Oannes Society outpost. Now, if you've read the comics, you probably know that the Oannes Society was pretty evil, but if you haven't read the comics, it looks as though HB and co. just slaughtered a room full of innocent scientists in cold blood. In the outpost, they find... Abe Sapien's cryotube... so I guess the producers were lying when they said they wanted the movie to stand on its own and not feature Abe or Liz.
The second hook is a mid-credits scene where Hellboy is visited by the ghost of Lobster Johnson (yeah, he's in this movie too for some reason) while grieving Bruttenholm's death. More references to comic events that are completely irrelevant here. Whether this is before or after the Time Skip, I have no idea.
The third hook is The Stinger, where Baba Yaga makes a deal with... someone... to kill Hellboy and take one of his eyes, and in return, she'll remove that person's immortality. That someone is almost certainly Koschei the Deathless, but again, not anything you would know without reading the comics.
Production
The acting's a bit of a mixed bag. David Harbour can't hold a candle to Ron Perlman, but I honestly wouldn't mind seeing him reprise the role, assuming he was given better material to work with. He does have a tendency to SUDDENLY START SHOUTING EVERYTHING, and I don't know if that's a writing issue or an acting one.Milla Jovovich was honestly great as Nimue, she was just hampered by a terrible script that simplified her character from being driven insane from worshipping the Ogdru Jahad to "I'm going to kill all the humans because... because."
It's hard to say if Daniel Dae Kim was a good choice for Daimio. He's an unlikable jerkass, but that's exactly what Daimio was in the comics pre-Character Development. Problem is that he doesn't have any character development in this movie, he just decides to stop being as big of a jerkass towards the end for no clear reason.
I didn't like Ian McShane as Bruttenholm. He has none of the class that John Hurt brought to the role and is utterly forgettable.
The special effects leave a lot to be desired. I'm not someone who inherently hates the use of CGI, but it was done quite poorly here. The character of Grugarch was entirely CGI and I don't think that was necessary. Daimio's jaguar form looked like he stepped out of an episode of Beast Wars.
The prosthetics for Hellboy aren't great either. The prosthetics for Hellboy and Abe in the del Toro films still look incredible today, while Harbour's prosthetics look like an above-average cosplay.
Tone
Post-Nolan-Batman and Guardians of the Galaxy, most movies go for either Darker and Edgier or Denser and Wackier these days. Hellboy tries to do both.This movie is extremely gory. Now the comic was gory as well, but A. not to this extent, and B. the comic had a stylized look, so the gore was never particularly graphic. There's more gore in five minutes of this movie than the entirety of the comic. There's also a fucking lot of fucking swearing in this fucking movie. Everyone is really fucking fond of the word "fucking". It's really fucking weird.
There's a lot of attempts at jokes in the movie, I say "attempts" because most of them fall flat, either due to delivery or just being at odds with the tone of the scene.
The movie's soundtrack is mostly random rock and heavy metal songs playing at arbitrary moments, like Hellboy riding horseback or on an elevator.
Final Thoughts
If they really wanted this movie to stand apart from the del Toro films, they should've just adapted Hellboy And The B.P.R.D. It's a prequel about Hellboy's upbringing and the early days of the Bureau, with Bruttenholm as a major character. It's also a lot less serialized than the main comic since it's an anthology that takes place at random points in the 40+ years before the Seed of Destruction story arc, so there's no worry of Continuity Lockout.