WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Hellboy, in theaters now.
Neil Marshall's Hellboy is an occasionally stunning bit of gory spectacle. The movie falters whenever it attempts to be tied to a single, overwhelming threat, like Nimue the Blood Queen. The problem is that the film works best as a collection of adventures starring Hellboy moving around the world. But in an attempt to tie all these otherwise unconnected adventures into a single overarching story, Hellboy fails to work on a narrative level.
Whenever it tries to be a streamlined and straightforward movie, Hellboy trips over itself and becomes a narrative train wreck. But when it drops the overarching Nimue plot and just puts Hellboy into exciting new situations (often accompanied by hard rock music and a whole mess of blood), the film rediscovers its sense of adventure and fun. While it may fail as a straightforward film, Hellboy proves that director Neil Marshall could (and should) have just made an amazing television series about Hellboy instead.
The overarching plot to Hellboy tries to tie together various disparate threads into a single straightforward story. But the problem is the movie never actually does a good job of connecting those stories. The plot centers around the resurrection of Nimue, which is the ultimate goal of the pig-like shapeshifter Gruagach, the closest thing the movie has to a consistent threat. But the other adventures that Hellboy engages in over the course of the film are almost completely unconnected to that part of the plot.
Gruagach's mission to restore Nimue frequently ends up taking the backseat during the other adventures that occur throughout the film. Instead, Gruagach and Nimue's story is barely connected to the various subplots that are introduced and explored throughout the film. There's nothing about Nimue in the black-and-white flashback to Lobster Johnson, or the adventures of '90s mullet Hellboy serving as a paranormal investigator.
The primary threat of the film ultimately doesn't connect to the most exciting moments of the movie, which is a fundamental problem with how the story is presented. If the heroes of the film aren't as concerned with the main plot as they are with random hunters and monsters, then why should the audience be?
Sure, Hellboy fighting a vampiric luchadora might not be enough material to warrant an entire film, but the absurd fun that comes from the sequence feels underdeveloped as just a short aside at the beginning of the movie. The sequence is based off "Hellboy in Mexico," which also featured Hellboy wrestling a friend who had been turned into a vampire, then being forced to kill him.
But the original story spent a period of time introducing the wrestler (and his brothers) and making us care about them as characters. This is what made Hellboy eventually killing his friend all the more tragic and full of pathos, instead of just setting up Hellboy to be sad about someone who has no real connection to the rest of the film.
Because the film largely has to be (tangentially) tied to the Nimue plot, it sacrifices time it could have otherwise spent making the audience care about Hellboy and his reluctance to fight his friend, or exploring why Hellboy is reluctant to kill him. The visuals of Hellboy fighting a vampire wrestler are instantly memorable, but the execution and story behind the imagery is lacking.
If Hellboy had been able to dedicate an entire, say, 20 minutes to the vampiric conflict without having to try and also make it connect the story to the overall plot about Nimue, then perhaps it could have been a great, goofy -- but moving -- Hellboy story about the cost of being a hero instead of just being a confusing introduction to characters we don't know and don't have any reason to care about.
The same thing happens with other sequences in the film, which feel more like distinct (and unconnected) vignettes than actual segments of one story. Hellboy going on the Wild Hunt and having to contend with both the Osiris Club and man-eating giants? It works extremely well as a short story that plays out like the most horrific Looney Tunes short ever produced, but it does almost nothing to advance the main plot or character arcs of anyone in the film.
Plus, it just feels off when compared to other more exposition-heavy sequences in the film, especially the retro pulp aesthetics of the Lobster Johnson flashback or the horror-inspired touches of Baba Yaga's chicken-legged house. Both of those sequences were gonzo highlights of the film, but had almost nothing to do with the plot about Nimue. The film does best when it's not connected to the main antagonist of the film.
The film even feels like it was constructed and plotted with episodes in mind, instead of an actual single narrative to fill a singular film. The smaller moments feel connected in overall theme instead of specific growth. With time, this story about Hellboy adjusting his perspective and thoughts on the world as he contends with different threats and concerns would make sense.
Everything feels rushed as just a film. Spreading the story out even as just a miniseries could have allowed the overstuffed narrative room to breathe and focus on the smaller moments. Doing so could have also allowed for more character beats and growth with characters like Bruttenholm, Alice and Daimio (who all come across as rushed in the limited time runtime of a film).
As a show, directed in Marshall's signature style but with time to really nail the individual tone of each adventure, Hellboy could have been an amazing and special series. By trying to force everything about this adaptation into a single film, the producers sacrificed a great deal of potential. Hellboy should have been an absurd action show that had the time to go any and everywhere, rather than the mess of a film it became.
Director Neil Marshall’s Hellboy 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 in theaters now.