Hellboy landed in cinemas in the UK yesterday and today begins to rollout across the globe. As part of that rollout reviews are now beginning to hit the web and the news is… not great.
As of writing the movie holds a score of 12% on aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. Here are some of the critics thoughts on the Neil Marshall directed epic.
New York Times
“The end is coming,” Hellboy’s dying friend says near the beginning, and I was already thinking, “Oh yes, please.”
The Guardian
For all the badass attitude and the CGI mini-apocalypses he strides through, this Hellboy is lacking. He is more of a Heckboy: a banal action-movie figure without the unexpected likability of his previous iteration. [2/5]
The Wrap
Captures the breathless quality of reading 30 issues of a single comic-book series in one sugar-addled afternoon, shoving as many amazing characters and storylines and images into one film as it can possibly hold.
AV Club
The sentimental father-son subplot is Hellboy at its most laughably absurd, highlighting the chasm between its script and its direction. [-C]
Associated Press
It’s really a series of violent vignettes strung together, getting more and more outlandish and introducing characters at such a blistering pace that you just want it to stop already. [1/4]
LA Times
The movie seems to spring from a curious awareness of how unnecessary it is, and it responds in the manner of an uninvited guest, with no interest in behaving or ingratiating itself.
EW
Look, I’m glad expensive movies are R-rated again. But this is the doofiest kind of maturity: boring CGI bloodsprays, F-bombs galore. [C]
Variety
It’s lunging to be a badass hard-R epic, but it’s basically a pile of origin-story gobbledygook, frenetic and undercooked, full of limb-hacking, eye-gouging monster battles as well as an atmosphere of apocalyptic grunge that signifies next to nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te4vD0hth-sHellboy stars David Harbour as Hellboy, Ian McShane as Trevor Bruttenholm, Milla Jovovich as Nimue, Sasha Lane as Alice Monaghan, Penelope Mitchell as Ganeida and Daniel Dae Kim as Ben Daimio. The movie is directed by Neil Marshall and arrives in cinemas April 12, 2019.
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