Hellboy (film, 2019)

In the era of the Dark Middle Ages , when monsters roamed the land freely, the powerful sorceress Vivien Nimue , nicknamed the Bloody Queen , sent plague to the lands of Britain until she was defeated by Arthur himself. Seeing that the witch could not be defeated with mortal weapons, he chopped it into pieces with his sword Excalibur and placed it in special chests sealed with the " Word of God ." The chests were ordered to hide the Knights of the Round Table there, "where even the Devil would not have found them."

Nowadays, the half-demon and chief operative of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense Hellboy , in the Tijuana Fight Club, finds his friend, an agent of BIO, Esteban Ruiz, who was missing during the search for the vampire lair. Ruiz himself turned into a monster during the search, and now acts as a wrestler. In battle, Hellboy involuntarily kills him, but he takes on a human form before dying, and calling Hellboy Anung Un Rama, he says that "the end is near ."

At BPIO headquarters, the Head of the Bureau and Hellboy’s foster father, Dr. Trevor Bruttenholm, sends him to England to support the Osiris Club, the twin BPIO in hunting monsters, in capturing and destroying giants . Meanwhile, Gruagah, seeking to reassemble the parts of the Bloody Queen to help him take revenge on Hellboy, an anthropomorphic monster boar, massacres in one of the monasteries of Great Britain and opens the chest with Nimue’s head stored there.

In the Osiris Clubhouse, Hellboy meets with Lord Adam Glaren, the monster raid leader, and Lady Hatton, the Club's seer. She explains that in 1945, members of the Thule Society , led by Karl Ruphert Krenen and Grigory Rasputin , tried to call on the “World Destroyer” to regain their advantage over the Allies . However, the combined special squad MI-6 and the OSS , which included future members of the BPIO and the Osiris Club, as well as the legendary "Nazi hunter" Lobster Johnson , who personally killed Rasputin, eliminate the participants of the rite. But Bruttenholm could not kill the half-demon baby.

During the hunt, which members of the Club go to in the clothes of medieval knights with electric spears, Glaren and his people try to kill Hellboy, believing in the prediction that he is the "Messenger of the Apocalypse", but they themselves are killed and eaten by giants. The wounded Hellboy defeats all three giants, but loses consciousness. He comes to his senses in the apartment of the medium Alice Monk, whom he knows since childhood. She says that the spirits of the dead brought her to the field with the giants, alarmed by what was happening around them. A search engine detachment breaks into the apartment under the command of a former MI-11 agent, Major Benjamin Daimio. Since the news of the opening of the storage of parts of Nimue’s body and the attempt on Hellboy quickly reached Bruttenholm, he urgently sent all free agents to London, and sent the group Daimio and Hellboy and Alice to the place where the last chest, the Osiris Club mansion, is located. The mansion and the secret room are crushed, and all members of the Club are brutally murdered. Alice manages to temporarily return the spirit of Lady Hatton to this world, but she continues to speak in riddles about the fate of Hellboy, as "Destroyer of the worlds." Hellboy meets Gruagah, inadvertently breaking a chest and releasing Nimue's left hand, through which the sorceress sent a vision to the half-demon, saying that his fate is to become her king and rule in a world where people like him will not have to hide. This allows Gruagah to escape with his hand.

Hellboy reveals the circumstances of the meeting with Alice and her parents: in 1992, as a baby, she was kidnapped by fairies , who left a substitute for her. Hellboy revealed the little Gruagah, who threatened with reprisal in case the fairies did not return Alice home, which happened. During the connection of the Nimue parts by the power of the Three Witches, Gruagah tells the queen that after that incident with the girl, he lost the opportunity to live in a family among people and was branded with eternal shame. In order to regain her strength, Nimue must regain her blood that was absorbed by the tree on Pendle Hill, where Arthur defeated her.

At the headquarters of the Bureau, Hellboy fights with his father over the fact that he has to destroy evil spirits, being evil spirits himself. The attempt to leave the bunker on the elevator ends with the transfer of Hellboy to a kind of foggy dimension, which is inhabited by another old half-demon foe - Baba Yaga in a hut on chicken legs . It was Yaga who hired Gruagah to return Nimue to take revenge on Hellboy for shooting her eyes and casting her into another world when Yaga tried to resurrect Joseph Stalin (in the Russian dubbing, Joseph Stalin was replaced by Adolf Hitler ^[10] ). However, she is ready to reveal to Hellboy the location of the witch in exchange for one of his eyes. After receiving information about Pendle Hill, Hellboy agrees, but only upon returning from the battle with Nimue, that is, never. Yaga curses Hellboy: “You will leave both eyes to yourself, but they will see the death of the one you love most.” Hellboy returns to the headquarters of the BPIO.

Daimio delivers Hellboy and Alice by helicopter and tells the girl that he received his scars after the battle with the cannibal jaguar. Hellboy gets to the hill, scaring away the monsters collected by Nimue for a campaign against humanity with a shot of a witch in the head. The Bloody Queen recovers and opens a portal from the hill, inviting Hellboy to join her, but he refuses again. Before leaving, the witch infects Alice with a thorn from her crown. Ganeyda, the only witch to have betrayed Nimue, says that the only one who can help is Merlin himself, who lies in one of the coastal caves on the edge of the island.

The old magician heals Alice from old age. Hellboy Merlin says that he anticipated the return of Nimue, and therefore used part of his strength to wait for Hellboy, who turned out to be Arthur’s descendant from his mother, who was a demon worshiper and conceived the child during the rite, for which she was sent to Hell, and Anung Un Rama is a given Hellboy's birth name. Merlin reveals Hellboy Excalibur, the only weapon against Nimue, stuck in stone in the center of the cave lake. However, he refuses to take the sword, because barely touching it, he sees a terrible vision: the world is on fire, and he himself, riding a dragon, rushes into the thick of panicking people, chopping them with a burning Excalibur. Merlin's forces expire, and the sword disappears. Merlin is unhappy with the refusal, and before turning to dust, he says that Hellboy doomed the whole world to destruction. Alice and Benu Hellboy said that he would prefer to fight monsters with "old methods."

In the meantime, Nimue and her supporters are sending plague to London, destroying the BIO headquarters and kidnapping Bruttenholm. Hellboy, Alice and Ben come to St. Paul's Cathedral to fight the Bloody Queen. The half-demon enters the battle with the significantly reinforced Gruagah. Ben Daimio comes to the rescue as a werewolf jaguar, which he became after receiving his scratch. However, Gruagaha is killed by Nimue herself, for whom he was only a temporary tool.

Hellboy finds himself failed in a small tomb, where on the throne are the decayed remains of King Arthur, in front of which Excalibur stuck in stone. At the next refusal to accept the power of the sword, Nimue brings Bruttenholm to him and kills him. Hellboy furiously draws a sword from a stone and takes the form of Anung Un Rama. Demons appear from under London and begin to kill people. The apocalypse has begun.

To return Hellboy to his human side, Alice evokes the spirit of Bruttenholm, who calls on his son to stop whining about fate and his place in the world, and he is accepted who he is - “a tough man with a stone hand.” Hellboy sticks his sword into the floor of the Cathedral, before chopping off Nimue's head. The crevices begin to close, taking the demons with them. Nimue says that he cannot escape fate, and that they will meet again on the last day of the End of Time. Hellboy throws the witch's head into a crevice in Hell and says goodbye to the spirit of his father.

Six months later, Hellboy, Alice and Daimio at the base in Siberia find a tank with the inscription: " Ihtio Sapien. April 14, 1865. "

It is further learned that Baba Yaga has not lost hope of getting even with Hellboy, and for this she turns to Koshchei the Immortal for help.

• David Harbor - Hellboy / Anung Un Rama , a demon from the underworld, who fell into our world as a result of an Nazi occult experiment ^[4] .
• Milla Jovovich - Vivienne Nimue , The Bloody Queen ^[11] .
• Ian McShane - Trevor Bruttenholm , Hellboy's adoptive father ^[11] .
• Sasha Lane - Alice Monahan, a girl rescued by Hellboy in childhood from evil fairies ^[12] .
• Daniel Dae Kim - Major Ben Daimio ^[11] , one of the members of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, who does not like monsters, including the main character, but at the moment of rage he himself can turn into a jaguar. Actor Ed Skrein was previously signed for the role, but voluntarily refused it after learning that the character was of Asian descent in the comics. A month later, the role was received by Kim ^{[13] [14]} .
• Thomas Hayden Church is Lobster Johnson / Lobster, an avenger who has a reputation for violence, such as killing gangsters, and he also burns his signature symbol, the lobster claw, on the foreheads of the gangsters with the palm of his glove.
• Penelope Mitchell - Ganeida, the witch and henchman of the Blood Queen.
• Sophie Okonedo is Lady Hatton, a seer and resident of the Osiris Club, an ancient English club dedicated to discovering supernatural secrets.
• Bryn Gleason - Merlin, the wizard.
• Alistair Petri is Lord Adam Glaren, a high-ranking member of the Osiris Club.
• Layla Morse - BPIO Officer
• Stephen Graham and Douglas Tate - Gruagah, a warthog-like creature that serves Nimue.

That Guillermo del Toro will not be a new film, said Perlman and the director himself through social networks ^[17] . The director suggested that the studio or comic book author Mike Mignola vetoed the shooting of 3 paintings ^[18] . According to Perlman , the third painting by Guillermo Del Toro was supposed to be truly epic, the fate of the character was to be decided in it, he believed that a really good film would have turned out ^[19] . Refusal to shoot in the opinion of the actor was associated with low box office ^[19] . The studio decided to abandon the adaptation of the movie Toro and the spin-off about Abe Sapien for the sake of restarting the franchise ^[8] . In May 2017, Mike Mignola announced work on a new film with an R rating and director Neil Marshall , known for his work on the TV series Game of Thrones ^[7] , as well as actor David Harbor , one of the main roles in the TV series Very Strange Things ^{[ 20]} . After the appearance of the new screenwriter Aron Eli Coleit in August 2017, the picture changed its name from Hellboy: Rise of the Queen of the Blood to a much simpler Hellboy ^[21] . In the second trailer of the film, the rating was “12+”, most likely the cruel scenes will be deleted. The creators of the picture have not yet commented on the downgrade.

Casting

Harbor was very happy about the opportunity to play in the film adaptation of the comic strip, especially this one ^[7] . The actor was a fan of comics ^[7] , he believed that it would be interesting and fun and they will manage to make a good film ^[22] . Perlman and Harbor met before filming in order to discuss the role ^[23] . Ron Perlman spoke of his successor as follows:

Harbor said that this picture should be darker and darker than Thoreau’s films ^[7] . In his opinion, the script is very good and he is glad that such a talented director as Neil Marshall will shoot the picture ^[7] . On June 6, the actor published a photo in which makeup specialists make a cast of his hand to make a character costume ^{[24] [25]} .

On August 1, it became known that the actor Iain McShane, known to the viewer thanks to the TV series “ American Gods ”, joined the project ^[26] . In the new movie adaptation, he will play the role of Hellboy's father, Professor Broome ^[27] . In the same month, a message appeared that negotiations were underway with the actress Mila Jovovich , who gained world fame after the film “ The Fifth Element ” ^[28] with the aim of involving her in the role of the main antagonist ^[29] . Actress Sasha Lane was invited to play the role of fifteen-year-old Alice Monahan, a girl kidnapped by fairies and rescued by Hellboy ^[12] .

Filming

Filming began on September 10, 2017 ^{[4] [7] [19]} .

In September 2017, it was announced that the premiere should take place on January 11, 2019 ^[30] , but later Lionsgate denied the information, explaining that the release date has not yet been determined ^{[31] [32]} . In November 2017, it became known that the film will premiere on April 11, 2019 ^[9] .

The film received devastating reviews from reviewers. So, on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has only 17% approval based on 198 reviews ^[33] . Metacritic gave the film 31 points out of 100 based on 44 reviews. ^[34] On the other hand, for example, film critic Aleksey Litovchenko rated the film 4 points out of 5, noting that “Now we have Hellboy, who is also a superhero, but very different from all the others. The only one who is really different. And if we miss a chance, if we let him disappear, get lost among competitors, moneybags, then the next chance may not be presented soon. We will continue to swallow the same sweet semolina without lumps week after week. ” In general, Russian film critics rated the film more highly than their foreign colleagues.