And before anyone gets mad, I am speaking of the 2019 reboot of Hellboy, not the excellent comic book series or Guillermo del Toro’s also-excellent movie (or its also-also excellent sequel).

This movie is genuinely hard to watch. And I don’t say that because it’s needlessly gory in a “I AM SO EDGY IT’S NOT A PHASE MOM” kind of way. It is hard to watch because there are so many “why” and “why is this in the movie” and “this is pointless” and “this person’s accent is very bad” moments. Why did they hire two Americans to play two English people, especially when one of those English people was an American in the comics? And neither of them is good at accents?

And there is so… much… infodumping. It feels like every person we encounter pelts exposition at us until the “welcome to the BPRD” scene from the 2004 film feels like a gentle breeze wafting over my face.

And why the hell is Lobster Johnson in here? Sure, I know who he is -because I have no life and my brain overflows with trivia that nobody cares about – but can you imagine being some ordinary person going to see a movie about a demon paranormal investigator, and then randomly this other character takes over for an important scene with no explanation? And you have no idea why he’s important, or why he’s in the movie. It would be like including Tom Bombadil in the Lord of the Rings movies.

So yes, this movie is a mess in every sense of the word. Also, the CGI in certain scenes is… disgracefully bad. Those giants literally do not look finished.