Following up two critically-successful/commercially-middling movies from acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro, 2019's Hellboy proves not all reboots succeed.
This version tells the story of Nimue, the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich), a sorceress who spread a plague across Great Britain before being decapitated by King Arthur.
Jumping to present day, the movie introduces us to Hellboy (David Harbour, Sheriff Jim Hopper from Stranger Things) - a wisecracking demon-spawn/BPRD agent tasked with destroying threats to mankind.
After being pieced back together, Nimue vows to destroy Hellboy along with the rest of the world.
This Hellboy spits in the face of Mike Mignola's original creation.
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Put simply, Andrew Cosby's screenplay is a colossal misfire - featuring more useless sub-plots, characters, scenes of exposition, and flashbacks than Suicide Squad (I didn't even think that was possible!).
Cosby, director Neil Marshall (The Descent, Centurion), and the studio have thrown all of their ideas into this disgusting, oversized soup-pot.
Rather than show affection for the source material, Hellboy feels content to copy/steal from a variety of other sources.
This tonally-schizophrenic mess switches hastily between a 'dark and gritty' tone and a Deadpool-esque, wink-wink-nudge-nudge style of comedy.
Characters come and go without warning, while rules are brought up and almost immediately discarded.
Harbour and the rest of the cast are fine, but severely underutilised.
This incarnation of the big, red devil-child should be sent straight back to hell.
