Hellboy: 10 Flaws That Prove Hellboy 3 Would've Been Better

Joel Harlow should be counted among the many talented people involved in the Hellboy reboot who simply didn't deliver what he could have. This is not to say that his creature designs are necessarily bad, but they simply don't feel as incredible as they could have been. The giants and fairies are uninteresting, as are many of the CGI creatures that gather to celebrate Nimue's resurrection. Baba Yaga looks great, but feels like a derivative attempt to crossbreed the Deadites from Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies with Tales From The Crypt's iconic Crypt-Keeper.

Del Toro excels at visually-creative designs, with Hellboy II's Chamberlain and Angel of Death standing out as particularly intriguing characters. Meanwhile, Harlow gives us an evil Bebop and a big cat. While both the Gruagach and Ben Daimio's jaguar transformation are true to their original comic-book designs, drawing so directly from the source material almost seems like a flaw when compared to del Toro's highly original take on Mike Mignola's comic-book world.

To his credit, Harlow does let his creativity shine through near the end. It was his goal to make the giant Hell monsters in the climax unique from anything else appearing in the film, and his Todd McFarlane-esque nightmares succeed wildly in that regard. Unfortunately, that's where his most imaginative creature designs both start and end. Everything else, from the beginning of the film to its final moments, fails to make much of a lasting impression. It's all just kind of there, flashing across the screen before vanishing in a forgettable haze.