Film Review: Hellboy

"We Faced Every Threat There Is, And Yet You Take Me In. You Made Me A Goddamn Weapon..."

Adding itself onto the esteemed list of cinematic remakes which not one single person in the entire galaxy ever asked for, the "re-imagining" of the stump-headed, Hellboy, hits the big screen this week, offering a fresh interpretation of the charismatic, blood-red superhero famously first seen on film thanks to the now Academy Award winning, Guillermo Del Toro, back in 2004 and again in its respective sequel four years later. With the project beginning life back in 2014 and first propositioned once again to Del Toro who ultimately turned the chance down to return to directorial duties, the reigns have been handed down to Newcastle-born, Neil Marshall, whose early excellent exploits in the form of Dog Soldiers and The Descent, both interesting and memorable B-movie splatterthons, resulting in the Geordie moving onto the likes of Game of Thrones among other high-profile projects. With a new director comes too, a new leading star, with the magnanimous Ron Perlman being replaced with Stranger Things star, David Harbour, who gleefully takes up the chance to embrace the lead role, and whilst Hellboy circa 2019 takes a more bloodthirsty and radically adult approach to the infamous spawn of hell, Marshall's movie is not just one of the worst remakes ever to be plunged into existence, it is undoubtedly one of the tackiest, cringe-laden so-called "blockbusters" I have ever had the displeasure of fidgeting through in recent memory.

With an opening monologue which attempts to add a semblance of backstory as we are introduced to Milla Jovovich's (Resident Evil) poorly designed and not so threatening Blood Queen, the deep-voiced dulcet tones of Ian McShane (John Wick) actually made me wonder whether what I had voluntary walked into was actually a massive Hollywood April fools joke which just happened to be just over a week old. Unfortunately this clearly was not the case, with the sudden appearance of Harbour's hairy Hellboy proving that instead, what Marshall has created is an cinematic abomination of scarily hilarious proportions which can only be described as Pan's Labyrinth meets Gods of Egypt as directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. With awfully timed humour, bare-bones level digital effects and a sense of immature rankness which takes pleasure in needless levels of exploitation gore, Hellboy in other, sensible hands may actually have been a semi-decent R-rated, nerdgasm-esque guilty pleasure in the ilk of Deadpool or the more serious and memorable, Logan, but with a central script featuring pig-headed demons with terrible scouse accents, zero sense of threat and attempts at characterisation which hit new, unprecedented levels of awfulness, Marshall's decision to remake a well regarded supernatural superhero franchise clearly should have been prevented from the offset, and with an ending which points at the possibility of a sequel, the fact that Hellboy was the closest I have ever come to completely walking out of the cinema means that such a dream will most definitely not be coming true anytime soon. Absolutely dreadful. 

Overall Score: 2/10

Film Review: Justice League

"I'm Putting Together A Team Of People With Special Abilities. I Believe Enemies Are Coming..."

Whilst it may seem that we are now in a world where every month bears witness to oh yet another superhero blockbuster, with Thor: Ragnarok still making significant moves at the box office, the release of Justice League is a particularly interesting beast. With the DC Universe already significantly tarnished to say the least thanks to the likes of Suicide Squad and Batman V. Superman, the release of Wonder Woman earlier this year proved that the series was somewhat heading in the right direction, and whilst the DC universe seems to always be playing catchup to Marvel's respective ongoing movie franchise, Justice League seems to be the real kicker in deciding the future success of the series as was The Avengers for Marvel, a film whose successes led the chance to delve deeper into the more subversive characters within Marvel's respective comic history. Helmed once again by long-term DC collaborator, Zack Snyder and overseen for completion by the steady hand of Marvel aficionado, Joss Whedon, Justice League forges together characters both old and new in a popcorn laced team-up tackling the threat of Ciarán Hinds' Steppenwolf, and whilst one would have hoped the latest addition to DCEU would follow the success of Patty Jenkins' work on Wonder Woman, Justice League is an unfortunate giant explosive leap in the wrong direction, one which seems to not have learnt at all from the failings of its' predecessors and that alone makes Snyder's latest an agonisingly painful botch-job experience of the highest order. 

With Superman gone and the world in mourning, Ben Affleck's grizzy Bruce Wayne seeks to bring together a team of highly skilled superheroes in a bid to defeat the threat of the wholly uninteresting and lifeless Steppenwolf, who like every CGI-based villain in cinematic history, seeks to bring Earth under his apocalyptic control. Adding to the eclectic cast of characters therefore, Justice League brings Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa and Ray Fisher into the fold as The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg respectively, and whilst it is cheap and easy to compare the DCEU with the MCU everytime either has a new release, Justice League fails on a fundamental level of not having even the slightest of backstory for any of its' leading characters before mangling them all together, resulting in a complete absence of empathy or willingness for them to succeed in their battle against evil. This of course is down primarily to the heavy handed approach of Warner Bros' willingness to spurt out the next release as quickly as possible and completely disregard the Marvel approach of taking adequate time in developing its' leading stars before mixing them into the bigger picture with Justice League just the icing on the cake for a universe which, aside from Wonder Woman, will be tarnished with a reputation of being the laziest big budget franchise in the history of cinema. Harsh you say? Not at all, with Justice League the type of movie which makes Suicide Squad look like The Dark Knight, with obvious weaknesses presenting them all over the place ranging from a non-existent storyline to cringe-laden chemistry between the titular team of indestructible heroes who come together simply for reasons of monetary incentives. 

With a villain in the form of the poorly digitally designed Steppenwolf, a character who ironically does somewhat improve on the blood curdling awfulness of Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, Justice League's main antagonist is the epitome of the film's issues, with heavy plot exposition acting as the character's only limited development for a villain who too often resorts to Viking-esque growling and cliched fight scenes to come across as anything other as sleep-inducingly dull, and for a character who seems to strike fear into the heart of many of the film's heroic protagonists, it comes at no surprise that Snyder has once again forged a wholly forgettable leading threat which at not one point manages to match the scale of even the most camp carnival esque qualities of DC's wacky TV show, Gotham. With too many characters and not enough script for anyone to expand out of their 2D, cardboard box cutout performances, Justice League ultimately wastes its' extensively impressive cast, with the likes of J.K. Simmons, Jeremy Irons and the outstanding qualities of Amy Adams simply being resorted to window dressing in favour of the likes of Ray Fisher and the inevitable return of Henry Cavill who are simply not good enough in their respective superhero roles. Justice League is seethingly awful, and for a movie which features the worldwide branding of Batman and Wonder Woman, Snyder's movie is a farce of the highest order and one which laughs in the face of its' fans by utilising beloved characters simply for reasons of box office projections, and with not enough redeemable aspects in sight, Justice League is the movie which I would think puts the DCEU finally to bed. Thank god for Patty Jenkins.

Overall Score: 2/10

Film Review: Logan

"Nature Made Me A Freak. Man Made Me A Weapon, And God Made It Last Too Long..."

With the monumental success of Marvel's Deadpool last year, the inevitably of a sudden spike in similarly R-Rated comic-based movies was somewhat unavoidable, with Suicide Squad being the first to match the all-swearing, all-shooting red guy in terms of regressing to a somewhat more "adult" nature with naughty swear words and a level of sexual awareness which was unbeknown to the vast majority of audiences who simply couldn't believe a film could actually be made, let alone be a success. Whilst Deadpool was a middling critical success, Suicide Squad on the other hand was a film which at the time seemed no more than a utter disappointment, yet in almost six months retrospective can only be regarded as an utter, utter clanger. Attempting to establish themselves as the leading figure of recent R-Rated superhero adaptations this week is Logan, a continuation of the X-Men/Wolverine movie franchise directed by James Mangold, famous for movies such as Walk The Line, 3:10 to Yuma and The Wolverine, and of course starring Hugh Jackman in a leading role which since 2000 has arguably been his most iconic and eye-catching amongst the many X-Men movies which have graced our screens over the last 17 years. Most impressively, Logan is indeed the movie everyone wanted since the film first began to play its' cards in pre-production, but more importantly, it is the film the superhero genre needed. Forget Deadpool, Logan is the ultra-adult, ultra-violent and swear-tastic Marvel film we've all been waiting for. 

Set in 2029, an elderly Wolverine strives for survival in the heat of the Mexican border alongside a severely ill Professor X within a world in which the mutant race has all but been wiped out with no sign of a mutant birth in over 20 years in a Children of Men style world crisis. After colliding into the life of young Laura however, Logan is forced to battle his demons and seek closure not only from his own life and the past he most desperately is seeking to leave behind, but for the future of mutants entirely. With Logan being released half way through the week, my view count of the movie has already hit the lofty heights of two, resulting in a much more aligned opinion of a movie in which hype and excitement has once again preceded its' release. With the parallels between Logan and Deadpool almost inevitable, the difference between the two is astronomical in terms of tone and overall satisfaction levels with the former being a hard-hitting tale of age and loss and the latter just an open canvas for a silly, albeit moderately enjoyable, teenage fantasy of sex, violence and breaking of the fourth wall. Logan is the type of movie in which pain is transposed from screen to audience, with the sharp swoosh of Wolverine's claws being as piercing as they are deadly, resulting in a wide array of foes and enemies which are violently massacred in jaw-dropping moments of action which bring to mind everything from Kill Bill to The Raid.  

One of the main questions arising from the release of Logan however is why has it taken this long to finally see a Wolverine this exciting and deadly? With Hugh Jackman on top-form almost every time he kicks into the character of Wolverine, the foresight of witnessing a rip-roaring Logan in his prime is mouthwatering to say the least and although Mangold's movie does indeed mark the end for both Jackman's portrayal of the iconic character and Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Logan is the melancholic, character-based superhero movie no one was really expecting, yet a movie which makes crystal clear sense in regards to a conclusion for characters which have graced our screens for nearly two decades. Whilst not exactly The Dark Knight in terms of overall superhero greatness, Logan is a surprisingly powerful Westernised drama which just happens to feature mutants. Obviously Jackman deserves to take the plaudits for his conflicted and degrading portrayal of the titular hero, but kudos too belongs to Stewart and newcomer Dafne Keen whose ambiguity and bad-assery threatens to steal the limelight away from her elder counterparts. Logan is excellent, there are no two ways about it, with the second viewing only increasing the levels of enjoyment of which the film secretes throughout a running time which simply flies by. A fitting end for one of the most iconic big-screen characters of this millennium so far, Logan is brill. That cross turn bro, that cross turn.

Overall Score: 8/10