j* Movie Reviews 2019

Hellboy (2019)

Heckboy sure brings the gore, but where was the swearing?

People kept saying this was full of swearing so I was no-end disappointed at not just the moderate amount, but the lack of really out-there full-spectrum range. It was mostly just the f-word... maybe the occasional sh*t. This week I have literally watched an indie NZ film (Mega Time Squad) that has a higher film classification score for swearing. Sadface.

This film has the most awesome score/soundtrack. I totally loved the thumping rock that yelled in my ear "remember the 90s?! Remember how all movies sounded like this!? Remember that this means you're having a good time?!" and lo, I did and it was good. Fully a whole star is probably due to the thumping cranking rock, used with great timing whenever shit is going down.

Hellboy is not a serious film. I don't claim to know (nor care) about the source material, but this film is pretty rollicking. If you ask me to recount the plot in a couple of months, I probably won't be able to. But I can't really recount the plot of more than half the classical novels I've read over the years, so you know, is that really a valid metric? It's not life-changing, but I found it a fun ride.

You should also know that they bring bloody King Arthur and the damn sword into this story. I note that this seems to be a hilarious thing a film does. If a film wants to make a point that it is going (for want of a PC equivalent term) "the full retard*" of mythic then they chuck in some King Arthur and hope for the best. I don't know why. But that's a thing films seem to do now. If it's not a film about King Arthur, and King Arthur shows up, you know the film is going too far, and it's probably self aware about this. For a better example of this, let me point you to Transformers: The Last Knight.

Where Hellboy goes deep is the gore. There's always some jaw being ripped off, some body being torn apart, some giants slime or witchy-harlots tongue doing something gross. To me this film is a bit of a "will it blend" experiment. It's like they took the fun-times of 80s horror, added some muppets and then ran with the energy of a Transformers. And while it doesn't quite push me to my ultimate experience of a film that goes gloriously bombastic, I enjoyed too much of it to not be on team liker. It's like an 80s horror pastiched with a modern ... well I don't know, maybe superhero.

Let's be clear, the story is nearly identical to Aquaman. But instead of being hosed with glitter and fish, in this you're hosed with blood and guts and ectoplasm. Instead of overly serious monarchy stuff, you have a criminally underused Milla Jovovich who finally gets to be a zombie. Well I mean she is called the Queen of Blood, so maybe there's some monarchy issues in there.

It's blood soaked fluff, and if I was giving half stars in 2019 this would have one, but I'm not, so...

J* gives it 4 stars.