Last week saw the first glimpse at actor Jack Kesy as the titular role in Hellboy: The Crooked Man, the new movie releasing in theaters later this year. EW’s Christopher Holub brought the exclusive with a teaser featuring Kesy in full garb, as adapted for the screen by director Brian Taylor who co-directed 2006’s Jason Statham action romp, Crank.
Based on the comic-book miniseries of the same name by Mignola and artist Richard Corben, Hellboy: The Crooked Man is set in the 1950s and costars Adeline Rudolph (Resident Evil) as a rookie agent of the BPRD (the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense) who teams up with Hellboy to protect the residents of Appalachia from the creepy Crooked Man, who is collecting souls for the devil.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man also stars Jefferson White, Leah McNamara, Joseph Marcell, Hannah Margetson, and Martin Bassindale among those cast. Ketchup Entertainment shared the teaser accordingly and made it public which you can view below, and the reaction (at least from this corner of the comic book film fandom) has been a little critical for the most part.
The screen legacy of the Mike Mignola-created comic has been a little spotty ever since Guillermo del Toro reneged on ever following up his two installments with a third. Neil Marshall’s 2019 effort to reboot the property hardly made a dent, a fact that further underscores how grating it can be to deal with comic book fanbases.
I’m not gonna lie. It is a little jarring to see three actors chosen for the same role in the span of two decades for an IP that’s had its share of trouble winning fans over. It’s not the first franchise that a studio has given this kind of favor to, obviously, and to the credit of Taylor’s film, I don’t think it’ll be for nothing.
Kesy has a handful of credits to his career, and I’ve already seen at least one film he made in the last several years in which he does some pretty solid work. That film’s not out yet, and that leaves me to believe that whoever is in charge is choosing to make this Kesy’s coming-out party instead. It’s quite the gambit considering Hellboy is a much lower budget affair being pitched to its target audience, but it is important to note that not every low budget approach to a film is a necessarily bad one. If that weren’t the case, people who doubted how Karl Urban’s take on Dredd was twelve years ago only to eventually see it on home media wouldn’t have been kicking themselves in the ass for not supporting it sooner.
I’m sure others can chew away at other examples, but there’s a clear case to be made for Hellboy: The Crooked Man. There may be no Perlman or Harbour, but Kesy is fair game here, and as a film critic and a fan who has enjoyed his fair share of mainstream and DTV action flicks over the years, I’m willing to give Hellboy: The Crooked Man a shot to assess it going forward.
As for the teaser, well, check it out, and stay tuned for a release date. And, read more at EW.
