Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Hellboy (2019)

2/14/2024

Hellboy (2019) - Grisly reboot a mixed bag

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Near-pornographic red poster for Neil Marshall's Hellboy with a youth shorthand tagline, presumably attempting to engage the young male demographic

Hellboy is tasked with stopping giants in England, - and the blood queen Nimue.

Hellboy is written by Andrew Cosby (Haunted (2002, TV-series)) and directed by Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers (2002)), based on the Dark Horse Comics character. It reboots the character on film after Guillermo del Toro's two Hellboy films (2004; 2008).

A shift in style from Del Toro's colorful universe, Marshall delivers a darker, dirtier and more adult - or more accurately; less child-friendly - vision in a film that will appeal to a smaller audience of mainly nerdy young males.

David Harbour (Black Widow (2021)) is good but hard to recognize in the title role under the heavy makeup and prosthetics, and Milla Jovovich (Zoolander 2 (2016)) and others are well cast in a strong ensemble that sees Stephen Graham (Help (2021, TV movie)) as a pig monster!

Hellboy is weighed down by a so-so plot and an overload of CGI effects with especial attention given to very grim beasts and deaths. It is a wild gamble that doesn't fully pay off.

Hellboy character: Hellboy (2004) - Del Toro's super-antihero is a tiring blast

Neil Marshall: 2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

The Descent (2005) - Marshall's intensely claustrophobic cave horror

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 50 mil. $

Box office: 55 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.1 times its cost)

[Hellboy premiered 9 April (Israel; New York) and runs 121 minutes. Despite Del Toro being interested in making a 3rd film, the studio took the project in another direction. 11 companies and support bodies were involved with the financing and production of the film. Shooting took place from September - December 2017 in Bulgaria and the UK. The film opened #3, behind holdover hit Shazam! and fellow new release Little, to a 12 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 21.9 mil. $ (39.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 10.4 mil. $ (18.9 %) and Russia with 3.8 mil. $ (6.9 %). Numerous stories of on-set conflicts, mostly between Marshall and the film's producers, has come to light, and Marshall later distanced himself from the film entirely, calling it "the worst professional experience of my light", the script "terrible" and further offered the eloquent insight, "You can't polish a turd." The film additionally made in excess of 11.9 mil. $ on the North-American home video market. Marshall returned with The Reckoning (2020). Harbour returned in 4 TV and short credits prior to his feature return in Extraction (2020, VoD). Hellboy is rotten at 17 % with a 3.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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2/14/2024

Hellboy (2019) - Grisly reboot a mixed bag

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