I cannot say that I have ever been a huge fan of Hellboy. But I simply keep watching the movies. I will eventually add the animated films to this list.
4. Hellboy [2019]
Of all four Hellboy films, this is by far the most soulless and the only one that feels like unfiltered slop. I do not know a lot about the background of the making of this film, but the final product clearly had no artistry to it at all. It felt like it only existed to cash in on an “established” property. That is obviously not a good reason for any movie to be made, but it is even more strange in this case since Hellboy was never a big comic book name nor were the previous movies big hits at all. David Harbour makes for a fine replacement for Ron Perlman overall, but without any juice behind the camera, there is not much he can do.
3. Hellboy: The Crooked Man [2024]
To be clear, The Crooked Man is not a well-executed movie nor is made by especially talented people. Compared to the attempted 2019 cash-in however, there is something pure about this. Its DTV nature allowed them to lean into the genre stuff, not force big ugly CGI action scenes on the film, and just make a shorter film that has fewer perceived expectations to conform to that saw off anything potentially interesting. The film if nothing else is an effective exercise in pointing out the costume itself is not the character. Jack Kesy has zero charisma or spark as Hellboy, and if this series continues, hopefully someone else carries the big red hand.
2. Hellboy II: The Golden Army [2008]
Hellboy II is very clearly a direct response to the first Hellboy. In the original film, del Toro had to compromise a lot of his vision due to various outside forces. For this second film, he clearly do whatever he wanted. And well, I am not a big fan of Guilermo del Toro as a filmmaker. Nothing so neatly captures his weaknesses as comparing the first two Hellboy films. Compared to the films released in 2019 and 2024 though, this is Citizen Kane.
1. Hellboy [2004]
The first Hellboy film took a fairly unheralded comic book character during the first wave of non-stop superhero films and proved that the character could effectively be the center of a disposable but not unpleasant blockbuster film. Del Toro’s worst instincts were at a minimum here, Ron Perlam did great in the lead role, and they brought in enough ringer supporting actors to never let this get too stupid. This film feels very in the spirit of Singer’s X-Men films and Raimi’s Spider-man films in that a talented filmmaker with a strong visual sense and great casting up and down the board can come together to make these dumbass films pleasant and fun to watch. As the kids say, we are losing recipes.
The Reel World 