Will we ever have a true successor to the 2004 film? Call me crazy, but I don't think fantasy and folklore are a good fit for this character. Or at least they haven't proven to be onscreen. As much love as The Golden Army gets, I'm personally not a fan of it. While Guillermo del Toro did a wonderful job putting that sequel together, the lack of demonology or the supernatural and the increased amount of goofy humor ultimately left me very disappointed with Hellboy II. Unfortunately, that proves to be the movie this reboot took the most inspiration from. The writing is really uneven, especially in the beginning. Things get off to an awkward start thanks to an exposition heavy (and poorly acted) opening that tries to cram together fragmented adaptations of several different Hellboy comics with results that aren't exactly cohesive. I appreciate the attempts at fanservice, but it kind of crosses the line with how much material it pulls from across the character's long history on page. Especially since a lot of it was only taken to help setup potential sequels rather than naturally fitting into the core plot of Hellboy's fight against the blood queen Nimue. It's sense of humor might be the film's biggest failing however. Like every big franchise wannabe it follows the modern blockbuster trend of trying to make us laugh for most of its running time. That just doesn't work. Hellboy has always been a sarcastic character ready to crack wise in the face of danger, but whereas the source material is sardonic this is just corny. There are moments where the movie almost succeeds at capturing the same moody noir tone of the comics only to undermine itself with the next stupid joke it had waiting around the corner. It still came closer to obtaining that atmosphere than either of the del Toro films did though, so I have to give it credit for that. Other flaws include Milla Jovovich and Sasha Lane turning in some truly terrible performances. The former I think is intentionally hamming it up, but the latter just seems like a bad actress. I don't know though, I haven't really seen her in anything else. The CGI is also pretty meh. You can tell Neil Marshall did his darndest to make the action scenes look good in spite of this, but ultimately I think his efforts only made things worse. The jittery camera was just too obvious of an attempt to cover things up. This is still my second favorite Hellboy movie though. It's a train wreck, but an entertaining one. And when it's leaning on the horror it's even a little good. There's some really nasty stuff and I love the liberal use of blood and gore even if it is CGI. The whole thing is so vulgar and excessive that it's actually a lot of stupid fun despite not being a quality film by any stretch of the imagination. So in the end I kind of, I don't know.... liked it? The whole Baba Yaga sequence is inspired and the practical effects used there rival the best work done by del Toro in his two Hellboy flicks. David Harbour does a great job in the lead role in spite of the material he was given. I'm so conflicted with over how I feel about this movie despite all that's wrong with it that I'm not going to be able to give it a rating. I simply don't know how to.