David Harbour

  • Hellboy (2019)

    Hellboy (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, December 2020) I suppose that if you must replace Ron Perlman as Hellboy, then David Harbour is not a bad choice at all. But it’s Guillermo del Toro’s absence at the helm that is most deeply felt in the 2019 Hellboy reboot. Neil Marshall is not a bad director, but del Toro’s affection for monsters and his unmistakable touch for the fantastic are what held the previous two Hellboy films together, and it’s sorely missing here. There are quite a few things that I do like here: Finally seeing fully-horned King Hellboy is nice, and the acting talent on display does include names such as Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane and Daniel Dae Kim playing were-cheetah. Harbour himself does well, and the special effects work is fun when supernatural weirdness and wide-scale destruction hit London. But the rest of the film isn’t as bad as it is instantly forgettable. The bland story retreads material far better handled in the earlier films; the tone has a lot of trouble keeping balance between end-of-the-world stakes and sardonic humour, and the over-the-top gore is off-putting, bordering on disgusting. In the end, this Hellboy feels juvenile, graceless and meaningless compared to del Toro’s dark poetry, and while this could have passed muster had earlier Hellboy films had not existed, they not only existed but justified the existence of this one. Once upon a time, Hollywood missed a fantastic opportunity to do a Hellboy 3 – but they missed it, and we’re never going to get that back, or anything approaching it.

  • Stranger Things, Season 1 (2016)

    Stranger Things, Season 1 (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, October 2017) I probably expected too much from this first season of Stranger Things. Considering the massive amount of praise that the show received upon release in the summer of 2016, that’s probably inevitable. Few things survive this amount of hype, but I still held some hope: After all, I grew up during the 1980s (albeit the late eighties), I am a fan of the King/Spielberg/Carpenter mash-up that is Stranger Things and I’m always willing to give a chance to genre stories. As it stands, Stranger Things is actually quite good. The eight episodes may be one or two too many, but the series does benefit from having the time to develop its characters, carefully unveil its mysteries and allow a more deliberate narrative arc than if it has rushed everything in fewer hours. The lead actors are sympathetic (the kids are great, Winona Ryder earns an unexpected hit and David Harbour ends up getting a very good role), the Duffer Brothers’ directing is competent and the action ramps up to a very good finale. Memorable, well executed and filled with nostalgic throwbacks, Stranger Things is about as good as Netflix-era TV gets. The problem with it is that it’s consciously referencing and aping other works. It’s comfort food, not meant to challenge but to elicit recognition. It doesn’t try to pull narrative rugs, play with deeper themes or explore new ideas—it’s a mash-up of familiar elements, executed in such a fashion as to beg for sympathy. As such, there’s a limit to how exciting it can be—while the result is good enough to warrant a look, I suspect that it will fade fast and have a harder time reaching those who don’t have a built-in nostalgia for the eighties. On the other hand, I’ll watch the second seasons gladly … but only after I clean up the rest of my Netflix movie queue.