The Right Hand of Doom clenches once more, and this time, the apocalypse feels personal. Hellboy 4: Ragnarok Rising marks a fierce and fiery return for David Harbour’s demonic antihero, plunging him headfirst into a war-torn mythos where Norse gods have fallen, prophecies have fractured, and the end of all things marches on the horizon. Under the bleak, cinematic gaze of director Neil Marshall, this latest chapter doesn’t just raise the stakes—it rips them from the underworld.
We find Hellboy in exile, having ghosted the B.P.R.D. after the cataclysmic fallout of The Blood Queen. Haunted by visions of a burning Midgard and whispers from a shattered throne, he wanders the cold edges of civilization—drinking, brooding, and quietly unraveling. But fate, as always, drags him back into the fire. When seismic anomalies unearth runes beneath the Scandinavian ice caps, ancient energies begin to bleed back into the world. A new apocalypse isn’t coming—it’s waking.
This time, it isn’t just demons or witches. It’s something older, colder. The Norse pantheon itself has returned—but not as saviors. Twisted by the malevolent Wyrm, an eldritch force that predates gods and monsters alike, these corrupted deities descend not to protect humanity, but to purge it.
Harbour’s performance is thunderous, yet weathered. His Hellboy feels heavier, more human beneath the horns—cynical, guilt-ridden, and grimly hilarious. He’s not here to save the world because he believes in it—he’s here because no one else will. This emotional depth is sharpened by his new allies: Sigrid, a disgraced Valkyrie whose blade remembers the truth the gods forgot, and Dr. Langstrom, a cryptolinguist torn between science and destiny. Their dynamic adds rich texture—faith, skepticism, and a shared fear of what the runes foretell.
Ragnarok itself is envisioned not as a singular battle, but a slow, collapsing cycle—an unraveling of the divine order. The film treats Norse mythology not as backdrop, but as decaying architecture. Yggdrasil is rotting, Odin is a fractured ghost, and Jörmungandr—the World Serpent—isn’t just a monster. It’s time itself devouring its tail, ready to end the age of gods and men in one convulsive breath.
Marshall stages breathtaking set pieces with brutal flair: a siege atop a frozen fjord lit by northern lights; a cursed battle in an upside-down temple beneath a lake; Hellboy riding a thunder-chained goat across bifrost shards as he challenges a frost-ravaged Thor. The violence here isn’t stylized—it’s mythic, symbolic, and soaked in grim poetry.
The film’s greatest strength lies in how it reframes Hellboy’s role. No longer just the prophesied harbinger of doom, he becomes something more layered: a reluctant hinge between crumbling divine worlds. The irony is stark—he, the infernal spawn, is the last thread keeping order. And that identity crisis burns quietly beneath every punch, every grunt, every sigh.
The score—a bone-rattling fusion of Nordic folk instruments, industrial clangs, and choral lamentations—only deepens the dread. You don’t watch Ragnarok Rising. You feel it cracking beneath your feet like breaking ice.
By its final act, Hellboy must make a choice: embrace the destructive destiny etched into his blood, or defy it entirely and become something no god or demon expected—a true guardian of balance. The decision comes not with triumph, but cost. And the price… will linger.
⭐ Verdict: 8.8/10
Hellboy 4: Ragnarok Rising is a visually vicious, thematically resonant dive into myth and madness. With weighty performances, brutal mythic combat, and a tortured heart at its core, it’s the Hellboy sequel fans have long deserved—grim, bold, and unforgettable.
🩸 “He was forged in hell… to stop something worse.”
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