HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN:
NEVER MIND, THIS IS THE REBOOT THAT SHOULD GO TO HELL!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: ½ out of 4
KETCHUP ENTERTAINMENT
Jack Kesy as Hellboy in Hellboy: The Crooked Man
Hellboy is back on the big screen (sort of) in Hellboy: The Crooked Man, the second reboot of the Hellboy film series based on the Dark Horse Comics character of the same name. I’m sure I went over this in my review for the 2019 Hellboy reboot, but I love Hellboy as a character and find him to be a super charismatic, endearing, and very unique take on a superhero with him basically treating his monster fighting and world saving like it’s another day at the office.
Granted most of my appreciation for the character came from the two Hellboy movies from 2004 and 2008 directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring the definitive Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman, but I did check out some of Mike Mignola’s comics sometime afterwards. Hellboy (2004) and its sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army are awesome with imaginative creature designs and worlds, exciting action, amazing makeup and practical effects, and surprisingly captivating characters; to this day they still remain the definitive Hellboy movies.
Sadly, due to Hellboy II: The Golden Army underperforming with a large part of it being because it was released right before the much anticipated, The Dark Knight, del Toro and Perlman never got to complete their run as planned and thus we got a 2019 R-rated reboot with David Harbour instead. The reboot sucked, no way of dancing around it though David Harbour wasn’t a bad choice for Hellboy, but it severely lacked the creativity and sense of fun that the del Toro films had and the characters themselves were nowhere near as compelling as the previous movies, it was a blood-drenched mess.
So, clearly due to the 2019 reboot bombing and being panned by critics, audiences, and fans Millennium Media realized what people want is for Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman to properly finish their trilogy, right? Wrong, reboot that shit again!
Hellboy: The Crooked Man comes to us from Brian Taylor (Crank 1 and 2, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance,Mom and Dad) who is probably better known for his works with Mark Neveldine and stars Jack Kesy (12 Strong, Deadpool 2, The Killer) as the red man with the giant fist. Brian Taylor does not have a good resume when it comes to comic book movies judging by the examples I mentioned, but after the 2019 version left a bad taste in my mouth, maybe this one will finally be the good Hellboy reboot that he deserves…Absolutely goddamn not!
I always assumed the 2019 version would be rock bottom for the Hellboy films, but nope if you could believe it Hellboy: The Crooked Man manages to be even worse than that movie. I found it to be a dreary, murky, and surprisingly soulless adaptation of such a great character that’s on par with a crappy made-for-TV movie on the SyFy Channel, the fact this was released theatrically in certain areas is simply baffling.
The film is set in 1959 and follows half-man, half-demon, Hellboy (Kesy) and a rookie BPRD (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) agent named Jo (Adeline Rudolph-Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Resident Evil(2022 Netflix series), Mortal Kombat 2) being stranded in rural Appalachia after an intense train crash. They soon discover a community of witches led by a demonic entity known as The Crooked Man (Martin Bassindale) who has a connection to Hellboy’s past.
Hellboy, Jo, and an ex-soldier they befriend named Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White-Yellowstone, God’s Country, Civil War) who encountered The Crooked Man as a child must fight off these evil witches and send The Crooked Man straight to Hell. Also, there’s a giant shapeshifting spider.
The film also stars Joseph Marcell (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Exorcism of God, Mammoth) as Reverend Nathaniel Armstrong Watts and Leah McNamara (Vikings, Metal Heart, Danny Boy) as Effie Kolb.
Overall, Hellboy: The Crooked Man may appeal to longtime fans of the comics and will probably appreciate one of Mignola’s stories being adapted to the screen, but for a casual fan (such as myself) or audience member, this is a horrible and surprisingly dull introduction to this take on the character. That’s twice now they botched the Hellboy franchise with inferior reboots, but at least the 2019 movie had some entertainment value during it.
This was just a bleak and ugly-looking movie to me which you could argue makes the film look scarier, but I did not find it to be that visually appealing or fun to look at. Lots of grays and browns everywhere not to mention action scenes that are so poorly lit and hard to see I couldn’t even admire Hellboy shooting and smashing demons real good, my viewing was a tedious slog despite the film not being very long.
The CGI is awful, even more so than the 2019 film with effects you’d see on a television movie and not a film initially made for theaters. The opening train crash is incredibly fake and looks like a PS2 video game cutscene, a horribly CG’d spider on par with a Brendan Fraser Mummy movie, and a snake that makes the snakes from Snakes on a Plane look like fucking Gollum by comparison; I know the movie was made on a $20 million budget but look at films like The Creator or District 9 which also had low budgets yet had amazing special effects.
Jack Kesy is fine as a younger version of Hellboy though I consider him the weakest actor to portray the character. He is trying the best he can to make something memorable out of this role, unfortunately if you can believe it Hellboy is not written that interesting here and is often seen as a secondary character in the movie that’s fucking named after him with more focus being on Jefferson White’s Tom.
Like many people, I was not impressed when the first reveal of Kesy’s Hellboy makeup was shown and was constantly comparing it unfavorably to Ron Perlman and David Harbour. But because this is set in the 1950s and revolves around a younger version of the character, I warmed up to it.
While the titular Crooked Man is barely onscreen, he is genuinely frightening whenever he shows up and the makeup effects on him are top notch. Every time he appears, he gives this unnerving, unsettling presence and it is very effective in the movie…just wished he had more to do in this slog.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man has officially become the new worst Hellboy movie ever made that lacks the imagination and fun of the Perlman movies and even makes the Harbour version look better by comparison. It’s a movie that was clearly made just so Millennium can hold onto the Hellboy rights and nothing more, send this monster to Hell.
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