Film of the Week: Hellboy

This is not a film for the weak stomachs. There is a lot of blood and gore, and everything else in between. The film’s tone is tongue-in-cheek; it doesn’t take itself at all seriously. The surreal nature throughout does dampen the blood and gore’s overall effect it has, but it is still at the high end of the spectrum. The first two Hellboy before this reboot weren’t as gory, and so you do have an even adult version of the franchise, something I didn’t know they could do until upon watching it. The blood and gore can put a lot of people off even if they are a fan of the character, they’ll automatically return to the original two films as it’s an easier watch.

If you can see past the gore, the question remains on whether it is actually a good movie. Being a reboot of a popular franchise, the character was made semi-iconic due to Ron Perlman’s performance, and for some people it was difficult to see Hellboy played by anyone else. In fact, Ron actually set up a campaign attempting to get Hellboy 3 made, but the studio opted for a reboot because, why not, I guess.

David Harbour’s performance as Hellboy isn’t anything to complain at. Sure, Rom made the character is own, but David leans into the tongue-in-cheek nature of the film, and boosts the overall self-aware tone throughout.

With a reboot, you expect it to be synonymous to the original, but this was very different. The filmmakers were given permission to make an R-rated film – which in America is England’s equivalent to a 15. For studios, it’s a gamble to release R-rated films, as the audience shrinks considerably if it had a PG-13 (England’s equivalent of a 12A). From a studio’s perspective, an R-rated movie doesn’t bring in as much money as a lower rated film does, but that’s slowly changing as studios are having more faith in those rated films ever since the release of Deadpool. Deadpool was an eye-opener, because it made an absolute tonne load of money at the box office, and left other studios scratching their heads wondering what the heck can they do to jump on this wagon and ride this particularly big wave, without considering that the reason why Deadpool was good was because it was a good movie, as it basically ticked all the boxes fans had in front of them whilst watching it in the cinema.

Hellboy was given permission to be R-rated, and therefore the filmmakers were allowed to raise the bar on what was allowed in the film. Hellboy went from being a humble reboot of a franchise we love, to being its own thing entirely. Sure, it’s still looked at and labelled as a reboot, but the fact it was allowed to go beyond that of what the original two films did, a completely different film was made as a result.

Strong comparisons can be made with other rebooted franchises. Lists are created with deep analyses on the original set of films and the rebooted ones, but it would be difficult to compare this version of Hellboy with the original two as they are, tonally, so different. Same character, but in a different movie, because it has an R-rating. It doesn’t at all feel like you’re watching the same film again, but a fresh take which acts as if it’s the only one that had been made. Therefore, you can watch both the first two and this one and not get bored; but the blood and gore knocks it down a few points for me.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)