For the Hell of It

For some reason, we just didn’t get into Hellboy (2019). It wasn’t just the lack of  Ron Perlman, we kind of felt the same way about his sequel.

This one starts out in Days of Old, with Mila Jovavich as the sorceress Nimue fighting King Arthur et al. She’s pretty indestructible, but Excalibur could cut her up into little pieces, which were dispersed throughout the land. I guess you can figure out how that will go.

In the present day, Hellboy (David Harbour) goes to a Mexican wrestling match to retrieve an operative whose methods have become unsound. Turns out he has become possessed, and prophesies that Hellboy will bring about the End of All Things. As he runs around on various missions, he hears this from everyone, and begins to think that might be his fate, and what the hell.

He runs into a number of fun critters - giants, an ugly fairy, Baba Yaga (the old Russian witch, not John Wick), and a spiritualist whose life he once saved. This is Sasha Lane, a lovely woman who livens the proceedings up a bit.

But mostly is seemed like a grind. Like with Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, I felt like interesting things were going on, but I wasn’t taking them in. Maybe it was the grimness - although there was still some of that old Hellboy humor. This felt a little like that Vin Diesel movie, The Last Witch Hunter. That is, a little straight-to-streaming, although it had a real budget.

So, maybe it’s just me or just the mood I was in. Of course, it didn’t do too well at the box office, but what do they know?