Movie Review: Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) *No Spoilers*

I would not call myself a comic book fan of Hellboy. I've never read a single comic about him.

My sum total knowledge of the character comes from the first two live action films, Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), staring Ron Pearlman in the titular role. Essentially I'm a fan of those two films. Particularly Ron's portrayal of the character.

I've been wanting to see the two later reboot attempts, in particular, David Harbor's run at the character in, Hellboy (2019), but reviews suggested I'd be disappointed if I spent any extra on them beyond a streaming service subscription.

I missed David's Hellboy when it was on streaming, and currently I think you can only rent or buy it.

However, Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) surfaced, at no extra cost on Amazon Prime, so I decided to give it a go.

The poster says it's the fourth installment in the franchise, so I guess these films are loosely set in the same continuity and are all the same Hellboy, even though the dates and times are different?

This particular installment is set in the 1950's. Hellboy (Jack Kesy) and rookie B.P.R.D. agent, Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph) are sent to the Appalachians, where they discover a remote community dominated by witches and led by the sinister local demon, the Crooked Man.

The movie definitely started out with potential with a very action packed opening train sequence that, despite some odd but necessary exposition from the guy sent to make sure the cargo he, Hellboy, and Bobbie are travelling with makes it to its destination (he doesn't know what the cargo is and... Hellboy? What's he actually going to do if Hellboy goes rogue?). I liked this sequence a lot.

It was all downhill from there though. It's like they blew the budget on the opening sequence. Which wouldn't surprise me, it's a great opening sequence.

The rest of the film is, what I imagine to be all standard horror movie, walk through the woods, fare. I don't know, I'm not a horror movie person really. There's no real character development, and everyone who sees Hellboy for the first time acts like they see a big red demon like man every other Tuesday.

Admittedly Hellboy is probably the least weird thing they've seen that week given their community is dominated by witches and a demon but still... it's the 1950s. You'd think he'd have some impact upon first sighting.

Honestly, I was bored by the halfway point. I only managed to get through the film by doom scrolling on my phone during the slow bits.

Maybe if I had given it my full attention I would've had a jump scare or two, or even had some kind of clue as to which one of the supporting cast was actually 'The Crooked Man'. I looked that up on IMDB just now. I don't recall seeing that actor (Martin Bassindale) in the film. I guess he must've been under a lot of make up?

I don't know about you, but I was expecting a Hellboy movie to be a story about Hellboy. It's not that. Or if it is, I completely missed it. Jack Kesy's Hellboy isn't even on screen much of the time. When he is, it's mostly for fight scenes. We never really learn much about him, why he's here, or anything. It's just another day at the office really.

I've read that this movie is more comic book accurate, and is the only one of the four live action films to give the character's creator, Mike Mignola, a writing credit. I've also heard Mike wasn't particularly happy with some of the choices made in previous films... I hope he was happier here because I couldn't be less interested in seeing Jack Kesy's Hellboy again.

Which is not to say Jack was bad. Not at all. This movie just didn't do anything to get me invested in his character. You could easily have replaced him with any generic big guy with some resistance to supernatural powers.

You may like this if you're a fan of the comic. You're less likely to like this if you're a fan of the Ron Perlman films, which are more watchable, and definitely try to give Hellboy a little more depth.