This week is Endgame week. The culmination of 10 years of
meticulous planning and filmmaking. Regardless of your thoughts on the Marvel
Cinematic Universe or super-hero movies in general, you'd be hard pushed to
argue the monumental size of that feat. Logistically alone, managing to lock
down that many actors over that many movies and only have to recast War Machine
and The Hulk very early on (I bet Terence Howard is delivering Hulkbuster-sized
kicks to himself now. Maybe he and Edward Norton just meet up from time-to time
and kick each other) is worthy of some sort of accolade. The fact that Marvel
have managed to only make a couple of duds that entire time is also
praiseworthy indeed. Long-standing comic company rivals aside, you'd need to be
wilfully obtuse to an unhealthy degree to argue that the MCU isn't a much
better crafted universe than the shambles going on with DC. They are arguably
now the benchmark for comic book movies done right, which brings me to today's
offering; a movie that nobody wanted, the critics savaged, and the fanboys
ridiculed from moment one.
The development nightmare that ensued after Hellboy II meant
that we never got to see the planned third film in Guillermo Del Toro's planned
trilogy, which may or may not turn out to be a good thing. He veered massively
away from the source material which eventually ended up with a stalemate
between him and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, who has since gone on record sort
of disowning those movies as being mainly del Toro's idea of Hellboy, not his.
Negotiations stalled, despite fans desperately beseeching them to make that one
last outing with Ron Perlman under the prosthetics but even the power of social
media couldn't get the job done. Then, years later and seemingly out of nowhere
rumours of a new Hellboy emerged with Mignola's backing but neither the much-vaunted
previous director nor star on board. The Internet briefly erupted into a series
of question marks followed by derisory guffaws when the trailer landed. I must
admit to not a full guffaw, but certainly a well-timed derogatory snort. There
was zero chance I wasn't going to go and see it though; my levels of morbid
curiosity have always been unnaturally high.
Let's get one thing out of the way first; critics hated this
movie, but I've never let that bother me. I'll usually watch a movie before
judging it, with the notable exceptions of Titanic (never seen it, fairly sure
I'd hate it) Forrest Gump (never seen it, 100% sure I'd hate it) and any of the
pointless, self-indulgent Disney remakes of their own animations. I guess if
you only go in expecting the worst, anything better than that is a gift, right?
Bottom line is that I didn't think the new Hellboy was all that bad.
It isn't perfect by any shake of anyone's stick. You might
remember Neil Marshall as the director who bought us the genuinely creepy
Descent or the vastly over-rated Dog Soldiers that everybody seems to love but
honestly, isn't that good. Most of his movies in fact seem to be almost good,
but not quite and he's made his name off directing some of the more memorable
Game of Thrones episodes (I'm reliably informed, although I've never watched
that either which is apparently some sort of hate crime to the point that as
the final season comes out, you aren't even allowed to mention that you don't
watch it because it's deemed "tedious" by a fan base so over-prolific
in their use of memes and catchphrases that many of their conversations border
on non-verbal communication). The trailers were about as far from GOT as you
can get, focusing on a bevy of poorly executed one-liners and Hellboy’s oddly punch-drunk
sounding drawl, and the red-band trailer offered some randomly over-the-top
gore which was more in keeping with the director’s insistence that this would
be for a more mature audience.
The film itself is a very muddled affair. There are the odd
one-liners that land, but more often than not it’s hamstrung by some incredibly
wooden delivery from literally everyone involved. There are a number of times when
it’s almost like they forgot to act and devolved into just reading the lines
out, resulting in a sort of off-kilter delivery that is much more reminiscent
of British soap acting than Hollywood blockbuster. Sasha Lane’s Alice is
particularly guilty, but it might just be that her lines are just really badly
written. Daniel Dae Kim is just as bad and even the great Ian McShane ends up
sounding like he’s just reciting dialogue at a table read; his Broom is
basically just a plot exposition rather than a character anyway and as great as
he is, I can’t help feeling he’s miscast. David Harbour on the other red right
hand, is actually fairly solid as the new Anung Un Rama. The drawl is not
remotely as prevalent as is the trailers and he doesn’t seem to struggle even
remotely as much with the script.
The plot is lifted directly from some of the later Hellboy
comics, including the Wild Hunt and the following story arc, but that’s where
the biggest problem seems to be. It’s patently clear that the writer and
production team at least looked through the source material. Visually, they’re
fairly spot-on for a lot of the movie but it’s almost as if they didn’t bother
reading the actual dialogue. Maybe they just picked the prettiest panels, blew
the up as big as possible, posted them around the room in a rough chronological
order and then went for lunch. The make-up and effects looked a bit ropey in
the trailers, but they aren’t so bad overall and if I might indulge in a hot
take for a moment: as good in places as the del Toro version. Tonally, however,
there’s something off; the gratuitous swearing is fine for an action movie and
anyone who knows me knows how much I love a good swear, but there’s a time and
a place and actually Hellboy just isn’t that potty-mouthed. The Gruagach is probably
the worst culprit and I’m not sure what making him into a walking Scouse swearing
machine really accomplished, but so be it. I bet the dialogue was at least fun
to record. Elsewhere, one of the biggest themes in Hellboy’s world, the duality
of his nature as apocalypse bringing demon and saviour of mankind from
supernatural beasties is pretty prevalent but also somehow skipped over for the
most part. No depth, no real exploration and subsequently no real pay off when
it all comes down to it. It’s a shame really.
For all its (many) faults, I did enjoy it though. It is a
mile away from del Toro’s but if we’re being honest those movies, as much as I
love them, had their fair share of off moments too. Enough stuff happened to
distract me from the EastEnders cameos (I had to be told that they were there
though, I’d never have known otherwise), crap jokes, ropey acting and patchy
pacing. For sure this wasn’t “the worst comic book movie ever made” as one
review screeched at me through Facebook, although which DC alum that accolade
goes to is up for debate…
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