Hellboy 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Hellboy 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 8, 2019

Since at last count we’re up to basically — what is it now? — three thousand or so* film versions of Spider- Man, it probably shouldn’t come as any huge surprise that Hellboy is itself getting the “reboot” treatment. Still, many fans may approach this “new, improved” (?) version with the same question that accompanies many other remakes: why? Original Hellboy author Mike Mignola is on hand in some supplements included on this release as stating this version of Hellboy is closer to his original conception, and in fact according to Mignola includes copious moments lifted directly from various stories offered in the Hellboy comic books (er, pardon me — graphic novels). And yet, still the lingering question of why pervades this version virtually from the get go. For example, some may wonder if it really “helps” things to include an Arthurian element which also involves a witch who has been chopped into as many pieces as there are Spider-Man films, with each piece being secreted away in hidden places with guardians watching over, in a plot device that is eerily similar (as in virtually identical) to ones found in any number of other films.

*I exaggerate of course, but not by that much, as evidenced by this Wikipedia page.

Now fans of Mignola's original comics may well like the fact that this version culls so much content from them, and yet the film is rather oddly structured, including the more or less prologue setting up the whole Arthurian element along with the nefarious, initially dissected, Vivienne Numie (Milla Jovovich), otherwise known as the Blood Queen. But after the film ostensibly segues to contemporary times, it first flashes back for a kind of silly rehash of the discovery of Hellboy (played by David Harbour as an adult), albeit this time with all sorts of supposed psychological angst stemming from the fact that Hellboy wasn't previously aware that his adoptive father Trevor Bruttenhome (Ian McShane) initially may have had a bit of infanticide on his mind. And in fact this Hellboy seems to rather desperately want to inject the kind of "gravitas" that has informed some other cinematic superhero adaptations, except that in this case that approach just kind of clashes, arguably comically, with the sillier aspects of the Hellboy character.

But even after the flashback, the film then goes off on an apparent tangent involving an occult society in England that is seeking to curtail the activities of mutant giants. This part of the film ultimately is kinda sorta woven into the overall fabric, but it's both too disjunctive and frankly too misdirectional to ultimately work that well. Plus, when the film offers one character wearing a bizarre headdress as seen in screenshots 1 and 12, some may feel they've wandered into a previously unknown episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

This is a film that is stuffed to its veritable gills and/or horns with subplots and supporting characters, and there’s an onslaught of variably effective CGI at play as well, and yet this reboot seems to be missing one of the central elements of the at least relatively well remembered Ron Perlman — Guillermo del Toro films, namely: fun. The film tries to be “hip and happening”, with elements like the f-bomb being dropped within a nanosecond of the film beginning, or supposedly “groovy” yellow subtitles deciphering various foreign languages, but it all seems very forced and actually a little desperate feeling at times. Harbour is appealing enough in the role, but he simply can’t erase the memory of Perlman, especially when he seems to be mimicking Perlman’s very distinctive speaking voice.

Hellboy offers an overly convoluted “origin story” here that of course ultimately ties in to the whole Arthurian aspect, and it does have a good deal of fun with various occult elements like witches, demons and shape shifters, but the screenplay (by Andrew Cosby) is simply too busy for its own good, darting hither and yon to try to give the viewer an epic with some psychological underpinnings, something that’s perhaps a fool’s errand when the focal character is Hellboy.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf liked Hellboy even less than I did. You can read Brian's assessment here.

Hellboy 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080p Blu-ray.

Hellboy is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of Lionsgate Films with a 2160p transfer in 2.40:1. The IMDb lists a couple of Arri Alexa models as having digitally captured the imagery, with everything finished at a 4K DI. This is by and large a very impressive 4K UHD release from Lionsgate, and in fact were not for what I perceived to be a lack of really significant improvement in shadow detail in a few key dark scenes, I probably would have scored this at a 5.0. The uptick in detail is obvious from the first moment of imagery, with the chainmail and festering face of a corpse more precise looking, and with the striking black and white photography (with one notable exception) really offering stunning contrast. Depth of field is also at least marginally improved, though my hunch is a lot of the backgrounds were either finessed with or done completely by CGI. Once the film gets into its color element, Dolby Vision really adds a number of enjoyable new highlights. The orange and yellow tones that are so prevalent have a number of really interesting new interstitial tones discernable, and once again detail levels are noticeably improved across the board, including everything from the textures on fabrics to some of the makeup. Even the CGI creations look a good deal more "substantial" in this iteration, with at least some improvement in textures and overall definition. There are some deficits in improvement of shadow detail in my estimation, notably in some scenes like the monastery where Nimue's head is found, or late in the film at St. Paul's. I hoped for and perhaps even expected there to be a pretty major improvement, and while there arguably is, it didn't strike me as overly impressive. Everything else about this transfer is really aces, though, and my hunch is fans of the film will be very well pleased with the look of this presentation in 4K.

Hellboy 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hellboy features a rather bombastic Dolby Atmos mix which provides a lot of surround activity as well as some fun vertical placement of effects. There are a number of well done panning effects that can whip both through and over the listener, and the sound design regularly populates the surround channels with discrete effects even in some of the relatively "quieter" scenes. Ambient environmental sounds are appealing placed around the soundfield in several outdoor sequences. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout this presentation, with fidelity remaining excellent and dynamic range extremely wide.

Hellboy 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Tales of the Wild Hunt: Hellboy Reborn (HD; 1:11:28) is a good in depth three part featurette which gets into not just a host of production data, but some of the "philosophy" behind this reboot. There are decent interviews with principal cast and crew, along with Mike Mignola.


• Deleted Scenes (HD; 7:56)


• Previsualization (HD; 7:18) offers some pretty basic computer animated storyboards for some sequences.

Hellboy 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm kind of a nut for some of the late 19th century occult societies that are passingly referenced in this Hellboy, and that peculiar interest may have been enough to maintain my interest in what is really a kind of hodgepodge of storylines and characters. The Perlman - del Toro films didn't exactly set the box office on fire (one probable reason this version is helmed by Neil Marshall and stars David Harbour), but they had style in abundance and they were often downright fun (and funny) to watch. This Hellboy has moments of excitement, but it's too convoluted and never comes close to realizing the emotional content it seems to be aiming for. Technical merits are first rate for those considering a purchase.