Hellboy

517 A.D.: King Arthur defeats the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich) with the help of his trusty magical sword Excalibur, chopping her into pieces and burying her still-living body parts in the far reaches of the land. 1500 years later, changeling Gruagach (voiced by Stephen Graham) pieces the queen back together so that she can destroy mankind and rule the Earth with monsters as her loyal subjects. Hellboy (David Harbour) is given the job of preventing this from happening.

The majority of fans and critics gave this film hell on its release. So what did it do to deserve such damnation?

For many, the simple fact that it wasn't directed by Guillermo Del Toro and didn't star Ron Perlman was enough to demonise the movie, but even overlooking the change of director and leading man, there is still plenty to dislike: the creature-filled action scenes are over-reliant on unrealistic CGI; the comedy frequently mis-fires; Daniel Dae Kim and Sasha Lane are lousy as Hellboy's sidekicks; and the plot is rather scattershot. Oh, and there's a REALLY bad ectoplasmic Ian McShane.

Having said that, there is also quite a lot to enjoy: the R-Rating allows for plenty of graphic gore (although, sadly, much of it is also digital); there are some delightfully absurd moments (Hellboy's encounter with hideous witch Baba Yaga, who lives in a house on giant chicken legs, is excellent, and Eastenders fans will enjoy seeing Mo Harris brandishing a machine gun); the links to Arthurian legend are fun, and apparently make the film more faithful to the comics than Del Toro's movies; and director Neil Marshall occasionally shows us what he is really capable of (the single-shot fight scene in a Siberian complex at the end of the film is wonderful).

All in all, a very mixed bag of a movie: not the completely hellish experience that I had heard it was, but far from great.