Hellboy: The Crooked Man - A Second Reboot that Sadly Felt Unnecessary and Unentertaining

This week, there were only few new movies released in Indonesian cinemas with only this one that caught my attention. As my wife and I got some things to do during the weekend and although it was a familiar title, I was not that persistent in seeing the film. However since we managed to clear our schedule, we still get to see it in the theater very near our home yesterday. OK, let's just get to it then.

Brief Story Line

Set in the 1950s, Hellboy (Jack Kesy - The Outpost, The Strain TV series etc) along with his partner Bobbie Jo (Adeline Rudolph - Resident Evil TV series etc) from Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence (BPRD) had just finished an assignment, when they somehow ended in the Appalachia mountains where strange things were occurring and seemed to be related to witches. They later met with Tom Ferrel (Jefferson White - Yellowstone TV series etc) who had some knowledge on the witches. 

After futher investigation, Hellboy, Jo and Tom encountered a woman named Elfie (Leah McNamara - Then You Run TV series etc) who apparently was working for supernatural being called the Crooked Man (Martin Bassindle) and had been collecting the souls of people.

Now Hellboy and Jo had to fight against the evil power that seemed to know something about Hellboy's past. So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, my wife and I were familiar with the name Hellboy and we had seen all 3 previous live movie adaptations, including the 2019 Reboot. And though the last reboot was not exactly well received, but we kind of enjoyed it and obviously its predecessors which were fun and quite memorable. So naturally we thought this one would also be entertaining. Unfortunately we ended up feeling disappointed as this one was anything but.

The early part of the movie actually seemed promising and with the support of good sound system, we were pretty excited. Subsequently though, the film moved in a slower, dark and frankly a bit weird story. The characters did not feel interesting and it also had strong supernatural sense that made this confusing, whether it wanted to focus on the horror or the superhero action cause we felt neither felt adequately explored. The horror was not exactly terrifying (although few times the jump scare was quite effective), while the action was very very lacking and even the climax was just too standard.

Throughout the film, we were shown something that might be connected to Hellboy's past, although for me it did not have any significance seeing the movie was a reboot and not an origin story. There was also an unimportant scene related to witch ball in the beginning that I personally thought was irrelevant. The director Brian Taylor who used to collaborate with Mark Neveldine in directing films like Crank and its sequel Crank: High Voltage seemed to like taking unique camera angles (my wife was the one who noticed this at first which I realized a bit later). He was also credited as the co-writers together with Christopher Golden and the comic's writer Mike Mignola. The special effects were actually pretty decent to my opinion while the sound effects was the highlight for me.

The main cast tried their best to perform to their roles, but we thought that Jack Kesy did not feel convincing enough as Hellboy (probably Ron Perlman and later David Harbour's portrayal were already too imprinted in my head), plus his skin color was not red enough (as my wife pointed out) and his voice not too heavy. Other than the names I mentioned above, there were also support characters like the suspected witch Cora (Hannah Margetson) and Reverend Watts (Joseph Marcell - The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air TV series etc). The film was classified for 17+ in Indonesia and R rated, even though I think the violence was very mild. It has a duration of 99 minutes which felt long and did not have any mid or post end credit scenes.

Overall this was not the reboot I was hoping for. After 3 times, I think it's a better idea to just make this into a TV series as there are plenty of materials to be explored and could start with his origin story. For those who are unfamiliar, Hellboy was created by Mike Mignola himself and this movie was based on one of its story arc with the same title. Not sure if critics were very appreciative of this movie, but Indonesian viewers certainly did not embrace it from the reactions in social media. However, it's more important to see the reception by the Western audience. So if you are hoping for an entertaining full action superhero movie, then likely you won't be enjoying it like us. But if you are OK with creepy & little bit horror scenes and have no issues with little action, then probably you would be satisfied.

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars