Helluva lot of fun, HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN is a welcome addition to this fickle franchise.
If you don’t much like super heroes, Hellboy is a fine antidote, a cigarette smoking, swearing supernatural hero with a penchant for punching and punchlines.
HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN begins on a train travelling through the Appalachian region in 1959. Hellboy, Bobbie Jo Song and a G man are transporting a magical spider to a top secret lab for research purposes.
“Doesn’t it give you the heebie jeebies?” asks the G-man.
“I am the heebie jeebies.” replies Hellboy.
The big ass spider wakes up and attacks them, killing the G man and derailing the carriage. The spider escapes. With their cargo now missing, Hellboy and Bobbie Jo decide to search for a telephone. In the woods. Where big ass bears shit.
They stumble upon a secluded house and ask the big ass hillbilly owners to use the phone. It’s like asking where they’ve parked the Mercedes.
Hellboy sees a young boy on the ground, immobile. The old owner says that he has been bewitched. Apparently, the town has been infested with witches for quite some time. And so their spell in the Appalachians casts a, well, spell, and soon they are at war with The Crooked Man and his legion.
HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN is riddled with big ass snakes, witches, blind preachers, insect swarms and the risen dead and fairly crackles with cackles, hackles, and grackles.
Jack Kesy plays the nonchalant neo noir lobster skinned big ass kicker, Hellboy, with a laconic lick and devilish delivery. And Martin Bassindale is a treat as the terrifying Crooked Man, an eloquent evil personified.
Screenplay by Hellboy creator, Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden and Brian Taylor, HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN is directed by Brian Taylor, and pound for pound, frame for frame, is a far more entertaining romp than the current Joker film.
