The review embargo has come and past for Hellboy and movie critics have been allowed to upload their reviews online. While we still await a Rotten Tomatoes score, the reviews have been generally negative, with many critics slamming the reboot for a variety of reasons.
Videos by ComicBook.com
While it’s the third Hellboy feature film, the Neil Marshall-led flick serves as a hard reboot for the classic comic characters which sees Stranger Things star David Harbour stepping into the role vacated by Ron Perlman. Most of the reviews praise Harbour’s take on Big Red, with the majority of criticisms coming from other parts of the production.
Keep scrolling to see what critics are saying about Hellboy, which is due out in theaters April 12th.
Will you be seeing Hellboy this weekend? Let us know in the comments below or join the Hellboy conversation on Twitter by hitting me up at @AdamBarnhardt!
—–
Have you subscribed to ComicBook Nation, the official Podcast of ComicBook.com yet? Check it out by clicking here or listen below.
In this latest episode, we dive deep into Shazam!, One Punch Man and more! Make sure to subscribe now and never miss an episode!
Owen Gleiberman – Variety
“That’s true of the movie as well. 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. Playing Hellboy, David Harbour has a tough act to follow and does well, but the real tough act to follow is del Toro’s. He staged these likable but flagrantly derivative galoot-superhero adventures with a dynamism that made them better than a lot of more “important” comic-book franchises.”
You can read the full review here.
Susana Polo – Polygon
“Hellboy is trying to do too much and say too much, but none of it is really what the movie needs. Crosby’s script attempts to cram half a dozen discrete Hellboy stories into a single film, with poor pacing and jagged structure. Marshall tries to make it a horror flick, a comedy, and an action blockbuster, turning out middling effort on all three counts. But the biggest problem with Hellboy is that it lacks any charm.”
You can read the full review here.
Johnny Oleksinksi – New York Post
“Beyond its grotesque style, the main hurdle here is wrapping your head around the plot. It’s been 11 years since the last “Hellboy” film hit theaters with an entirely different cast and mood. Audiences could use a refresher as to who this guy is, who his friends are, and a dossier on some of its yucky beasts. The aforementioned mangled corpse, for example, is a cursed hag named Baba Yaga who has been banished to another dimension. Google taught me this. Why was she banished and what are we doing there? No clue.”
You can read the full review here.
William Bibbiani – The Wrap
“Neil Marshall’s “Hellboy” is a wellspring of creativity, a major superhero movie made for hardcore R-rated horror fans, overflowing with humor and action and scares. It’s ambitious and low-key at the same time, knowing full well that its target audience isn’t the mainstream blockbuster demographic that demands structure or even sanity. It’s specifically designed to attract a cult audience who will love it to pieces and turn it into a long-lasting treasure, no doubt destined to survive after more crowd-pleasing pabulum has been relegated to the bottom shelf of history.”
You can read the full review here.
Mark Kennedy – Napa Valley Register
“Casual fans or the uninitiated are in trouble right from the beginning. Andrew Cosby’s screenplay doesn’t unspool a coherent story so much as violently shoehorn in diverse elements from the comics, overstuffing every scene and only then trying to explain why it’s been included. Director Neil Marshall leaves anyone not familiar with this world grasping and gasping. Scenes seem to just end abruptly, as if Marshall was the one trapped in story panels. A fight sequence with three giants is really the only astonishingly realized bit in the whole film. (It looks like a different set of filmmakers made it).”
You can read the full review here.
Justin Chang – Los Angeles Times
“Marshall is both an old-school gorehound and a fastidious builder of worlds. You can see his aesthetic priorities in every frame; it’s there in the gleeful layering of Lewis Carroll references, the loving attention to decomposed flesh and oozy textures, the creepy-crawly spin he puts on such canonical horror figures as Baba Yaga and her chicken-legged hut. His gusto is easy to admire if not always share, and it gives this movie a yucky, exhausting integrity. This “Hellboy” can be something to see. It can also be a giant bore.”
You can read the full review here.
Katie Walsh – Chicago Tribue
“With this noisy, fast, chaotic “Hellboy,” Marshall is at his most cheeky and most unhinged. It’s certainly… a lot. Harbour is an ideal choice to sport the crown of sawed-off horns as the demon with a heart of gold, an investigator working for his father (Ian McShane) at the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. Harbour has a warmth and humor that shines through all the prosthetics, and an ease with sarcastic wisecracks too. The snarky asides, which permeate even the solemn voice-over that opens the film (which starts in yes, the 5th century, with yes, King Arthur), let us know everyone here is in on the joke. It’s OK to laugh with the movie, even if it feels like we’re laughing at it.”
