[Review] Hellboy (7.5/10)

Title - Hellboy
Studio - Lionsgate
Starring - David Harbour, Ian McShane, Milla Jovovich, Sasha Lane, Penelope Mitchell, Daniel Dae Kim
Writer - Andrew Cosby
Director - Neil Marshall
Release - 12 April 2019

I'm not an "original" fan of Hellboy; I've never read the source material and I only started taking notice of the property when Guillermo del Toro released his version.

But while watching the movie, the tone that was revealed felt like it got Hellboy the concept right because that was what I expected it to be (but of course I could be wrong). The jokes, the main characters in most parts, the monsters; everything felt right.

David Harbour as Hellboy, I thought, was perfect. His comedic timing was important and the script allowed the character to address a lot of the character traits - I liked the joke that was in the expense of his face. And my favourite joke was when Daniel Dae Kim made about Hellboy's brain.

However, Kim's voice in the British accent sounded off; partly because of the accent which I don't think is original, but also the sound editing didn't for his voice didn't seem to fit in the rest of the movie. Which is funny because this was never a problem in TV.

Ian McShane delivered as usual, Milla Jovovich was good enough as the antagonist.

The biggest problem for me was that it ran a little too long. In between the second and third act the movie just slowed down, surprisingly, because the plot didn't. But the movie just took too long to get to the final fight.

Part of it was because some of the subplots were stretched out. An example, the subplot with the giants didn't needed the giants. But what we have gotten was surprisingly entertaining. But all these little things added up and it just got a bit lethargic.

Also there were also some monsters in the third act that reminded me of del Toro's style of creating monsters. I thought it was the filmmakers' way of paying tribute to him.

The end fight was executed well and ended well. So I really liked it and hope Harbour can play this character in a few more movies.