A celebration of visuals with a layer of stupid

Rating: 6/10 (7 March 2018)

This film is held up by pillars of style. It is a bag of cool camera shots and ideas for cool scenes (something its sequel would expand upon). On their own, these shots are great, containing a wonderful integration of color themes, shot composition, make up and interesting props. Even the outdated CGI doesn't look too bad, mostly because the digital effects are properly mixed in with practical effects. But the bindings that tie these cool shots together into an actual story are of poor quality and I found myself constantly trying to ignore the annoying nonsense in between the good stuff...in vain.
Here is an example. A monster jumps through the front of a moving subway train and out of the other end, as it tries to run away from Hellboy. Hellboy, however, gets dragged under the said train for a while and then gets left on the ground. However, in the next shot, the monster is standing directly above Hellboy, looking around. This kind of nonsense is non-stop, permeating the movie from beginning to end, and it is very distracting.
Hellboy is one of Ron Pearlman's better roles, despite the fact that his face is under a layer of make-up and his lines mostly consist of monotone gruffs. Jeffrey Tambor's and Doug Jones' characters provide a good colorful counterbalance to the said gruffness of the main character. However, everybody's lackluster dialogue complements the aforementioned flawed storytelling and together they keep this movie below its potential.
I am glad the makers fixed a lot of the problems in the sequel. This first film is still worth watching though, even if only for the charm.