Revisiting a franchise for no particular reason
By now, a reboot should be no surprise. In fact, some 96 percent of all films released in a year are remakes, reboots, or sequels. There’s a fairly simple reason for this. Movies are expensive to make. They’re a multimillion dollar gamble that studios make on a weekly basis.
All franchises have built-in audiences that can guarantee at least a certain amount of money for the studio. If a franchise can reach out and build a relationship with a new audience, it’s all the better.
While there may be some risk to alienating the original audience of the film, they already bought their tickets and the studio wins anyway.
The Hollywood system isn’t overwhelmingly interested in maintaining the integrity of a particular franchise. This can blow up in their faces, however. Star Wars fans, in particular, can hold some sway over studio decisions because as a whole the fan base is so large. Smaller franchises are unlikely to do so.
Hellboy is one of those smaller franchises. The 2004 original film, based on the comic book, was marginally successful. It did well enough to spawn a rare high-quality sequel in 2008. For whatever reason, it never reached the trilogy marker. This makes it ripe for rebooting.
The new Hellboy doesn’t really hold a candle to the originals—it’s hard to follow Guillermo del Toro and make something refreshing and original. But as action movies go, it’s pretty decent.
The story is not a continuation of the original films. It has plenty of nods to it—Hellboy’s origins are examined a flashback that feels very Del Toroish—but it is its own story with its own style. More than anything, the film is a bit more gruesome and gory than the originals, holding a hard R rating that’s becoming more popular thanks to the success of Deadpool.
It has a lot of similar beats from the original films as well, although much of the source material also looks to traditional folk tales for material to mine. The film is so gory, in fact, that select theaters around the country were treated to showings in what’s call 4DX, which mostly means that the audience gets sprayed with water whenever a scene becomes especially bloodsoaked.
As a fan of gimmicks, I support this kind of filmmaking.
Hellboy isn’t quite good enough to make a great movie on its own merits, so highlighting the carnage of the giant battle in the film by making the scenes more visceral is a wonderful support mechanism. It’s too bad that these showings weren’t more widespread.
In terms of narrative, the film is pretty boilerplate. Evil witch, King Arthur, blah blah blah, Hellboy as an apocalyptic weapon, jokes and puns. David Harbour is fine as the demon hero, but like the rest of the film, doesn’t quite live up to Ron Perlman as the title character.
I did enjoy a lot of the creature effects, which is saying something when comparing the film to the originals. Del Toro is known for his style and design, so the fact that there were plenty of cool moments in the new film is a testament to the quality of the art direction at the very least.
In particular, the design of Baba Yaga, the Russian crone who lives in a creepy house on chicken legs, was excellent. She was far more interesting than the main villain, almost entirely due to the design of her character and the practical effects (featuring the creepy talents of contortionist Troy James) used to bring her to life.
In other areas, though, the film relies a little too much on CGI. There’s a stark difference between the Baba Yaga scenes and the scenes during the climax. One is interesting and revolting, the other is simply more of the same.
It’s getting to the point that if filmmakers rely on CGI for all effects, I would rather see the film created entirely with practical effects than the typical computer generation nonsense we see in every movie. It’s become such a short cut that audiences only sit up and take notice when the effects become more real.
There’s a weight to practical effects that CGI simply doesn’t have. It’s funny how things come full circle.
At any rate, Hellboy is a decent action film for people that like that sort of thing. It’s better than Rotten Tomatoes would suggest.