Hellboy Review: 3 Ups & 7 Downs

Downs...

7. The Atrocious Direction & Editing

As is apparent from pretty much the first minute of Hellboy, this is not Neil Marshall's finest hour as a filmmaker, and though the Game of Thrones director certainly seemed like an inspired choice on paper, he appears to be completely out of his depth here.

It's certainly possible that executive meddling may have clipped his wings throughout shooting, however, as almost every single scene in the film feels crudely chopped up and spliced together, with odd shot pacing, bizarre transitions between scenes and a wealth of ill-fitting dialogue that was clearly re-recorded in post-production.

Even basic dialogue scenes feel hurried and overly keen to cut between characters, while action sequences are frequently headache-inducing, and lack the scuzzy spirit that made Marshall an in-demand director in the first place.

Clearly, something wasn't right during shooting, because this isn't merely a case of one or two scenes feeling a bit "off" - the entire film feels anonymous, committee-assembled and just plain messy.