What Made 'Hellboy' 2019 so Awful?

The 2019 Hellboy was just plain awful. Despite the excitement and anticipation, the $50 million actually lost money with only a $44.7 million world wide box office income. Things didn't get any better after it left theaters.... now it's free to watch on Video Prime. You know, if you want to see how bad it is. However, nothing really shows how bad it was like the reviews. Seriously, Hellboy has a 17% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. The poor director, Neil Marshall, seems to be getting most of the hate and blame for everything that went wrong. However, he also directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of Hannibal that has impressive reviews. So, it can't be all his fault... right?

"Based on the graphic novels by Mike Mignola, Hellboy, caught between the worlds of the supernatural and human, battles an ancient sorceress bent on revenge." - IMDb

According to IMDb, the plot was suppose to focus around a battle with an ancient sorcerers focused on revenge... but if you try to watch it then I think you will be confused by its other random plot detours.

If you want to read some of the most entertaining reviews? Look no further.

"Watching Hellboy is my new personal idea of hell." - Chandler Levack from The Globe and Mail

"Yeah, this is terrible." - Tim Cogshell from Film Week

"Bereft of the imaginative flair that made earlier Hellboys so enjoyable, this soulless reboot suggests Dante may have left a tenth circle out of his Inferno." - Rotten Tomatoes

"The performances are flat, the music is this weird blend of copyrighted songs and generic rock music, and the story is written in a way that prioritizes lengthy redundant talking over providing something amusing for its audience. Hellboy is just boring" - Chris Sawin from GHG

"Plenty of shock and gore, and David Harbour is more than worthy to wear the horns. But this is a reboot in need of a reboot." - John Nugent from Empire

"Hellboy may be one of the most insanely grotesque movies I’ve ever seen." - Paul Asay from Plugged In

So, since we know fans (and pretty much everyone else) hated it... what was it exactly that made this reboot just so awful. Well, it turns out it was a lot of things. A lot criticism went towards bad acting, terrible writing and lack of plot since the writers apparently couldn't stick with just one story. Even the moments with amazing special effects were totally ruined because there was no blending between what is CGI and what is real. One critique worded it well when stated that "important characters remaining strangely two-dimensional." Thank you Sarah Szabo for finding the words to explain that.

It turns out, what made the Hellboy reboot so awful was a combination of these four things: lack of consistent tone, overall poor storytelling attempt, excessive gore and what seems to be the most common complaint is that is just isn't anything like del Toro films.

I think this movie may just simply be the product of lack of teamwork. None of the departments were working together so once all the pieces were put together... well, it turned into one really sorry excuse for a movie.

With all this hate said in the reviews... there were some nice notes. Critics noticed within all the craziness of this bad movie, the makeup effects and the Harbour's performance were still able have its good moments. Which goes to show, no matter how bad things are around you... still do your best and people will thank you for it.

Work Cited

Amazon.com: Prime Video. https://www.amazon.com/Prime-Video/b?node=2676882011.

“Neil Marshall.” IMDb, www.imdb.com/name/nm0551076/.

Porzio, Stephen. “5 Reasons The Hellboy Reboot Was Hell to Watch.” HeadStuff, 18 Apr. 2019, https://www.headstuff.org/entertainment/film/5-reasons-hellboy-2019-reboot-bad/.

"Ratings and Reviews for New Movies and TV Shows.”, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/.

Rotten Tomatoes: Movies | TV Shows | Movie Trailers ... https://www.rottentomatoes.com/.