Hellboy Review: 3 Ups & 7 Downs

6. The Script Is Charmless & Dull

Despite Hellboy reportedly having 16 (!) producers in total, the film was actually only written by a single person - Eureka co-creator Andrew Cosby.

But that approach has done little to give the movie any clear sense of creative direction, and it still feels like a movie cobbled together from an awkward mish-mash of competing ideas.

If the completely forgettable plot isn't bad enough, Hellboy is absolutely jam-packed with painfully bad expository dialogue, with backstories for the villainous Nimue (Milla Jovovich) and Hellboy himself being basically vomited at the audience.

Also, most of the "funny" dialogue falls woefully flat, failing to rouse more than a sympathy chuckle as it drops references to the likes of Twitter, Uber and Google. Indeed, this isn't your daddy's Hellboy, but you'll probably wish it was.