Here we are, then: Hellboy take three. After Guillermo del Toro’s superb 2004-to-’08 double bill and Neil Marshall’s bloated 2019 attempt to take things into harsher action-horror territory, we now get the purist’s approach. Directed by Brian ‘Crank’ Taylor, who also co-wrote the script with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola (drawing heavily on his limited-edition series), Hellboy: The Crooked Man strips away the fantastical spectacle and brings its diabolic hero down to ground level, as it were, in a gritty low-fi chiller.
Similarly to Matt Reeves’ The Batman, there’s thankfully no attempt to re-tell Hellboy’s origin story. We’re just dropped right into another day at the office — or rather field trip — picking up with Red and his obligatory attractive-female sidekick (Adeline Rudolph) while they’re transporting a magically mutated funnel-web spider from A to B. Shit swiftly goes south in a little train-crash/monster-tussle set-piece that’s fun enough to forgive the evident limitations of the VFX and offer some hope for what follows. However, once the main plot kicks in, that hope quickly dissipates.
The problem is, with the reduced scale, there’s also an acute lowering of stakes. Whereas previously we saw a guy who was created to end the world having to save that world (which understandably hates and fears him), here he’s just messing inconsequentially around with a local supernatural annoyance in a barely populated cranny of Nowheresville.
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That needn’t be a bad thing - the problem with a lot of superhero movies is that they all seem to be for high stakes and, when that’s the case, it becomes less special. The Avengers films were special because we’d seen the individuals in their own films but the stakes were so much higher, they all had to come together.
Most Hellboy stories are him going off to some backwater to fight a mythological/folkloric for and so when the stakes are raised, it’s a big deal. One problem with GdT’s run is he went full end of the world right away. Where do you go from there? Turn it up to 11?
Exactly! I want “smaller” stories. Since the review brought up The Batman I’ll use it as an example too. I absolutely loved the movie… until there were suddenly bombs everywhere threatening the entire city. They could easily have left that out of the story and it would have been fine. He still could save the arena people without water.
Sky lasers are made fun of for a reason.
This Hellboy movie being told in one or two locations is exactly why I want to see it.
Since the review brought up The Batman I’ll use it as an example too. I absolutely loved the movie… until there were suddenly bombs everywhere threatening the entire city. They could easily have left that out of the story and it would have been fine. He still could save the arena people without water.
That’s what I thought too. It seemed like it was all.going to wrap up neatly and I was ready to go home and it kept escalating unnecessarily.
What really gets my goat are the superhero movies that end in a CGI slugfest.
The worst offender is Shang-Chi was going great with top notch action choreography and a mediation on the nature of family and legacy. Then in the final act it’s two massive dragons fighting each other to prevent the end of the world. All the emotion and weight is gone.
I also believe the first Wonder Woman film had it’s ending changed on orders from the studio and it definitely feels like it as it was working perfectly fine until… CGI slugfest to decide fbe fate of the world.
In contrast Doctor Strange 2 ended beautifully with people talking it out. That was a far more impactful ending than some kind of magical battle.
Even the Wanda show, which was doing just great, ending in CGI characters flying around shooting beams at each other lol. I’m 100% expecting Agatha to end the same way.
To me superhero movies are basically watching my action figures come to life 30 years later, which is awesome. But I never had my guys save the world every.single.day. it gets old.
You’re spot on about the Avengers. Big stakes needed a big team. That’s when the world ending stuff should happen. Even the last Spider-Man had a freaking world ending finale, complete with sky lasers. Come on.
Edit. I give props to Loki season 2. Yeah the fate of all life was at stake, but the solution was him researching and learning and trial and error, it earned it’s ending. There were no beam laser shoot outs.
I think this was the best thing about Dredd (2012). It was just a one-shot or a short TPB as a movie, basically. It was a perfect Dredd story too.
Yeah, there were plans to build to the Dark Judges but you have to earn that, it was built on years of stories about Dredd busting perps.
