Paul W.S. Anderson’s Monster Hunter sends video-game moves stumbling back a few steps with an uninspired adaptation of the popular Capcom game series of the same name.
Milla Jovovich plays Artemis, an Army Ranger commander who, along with her squadron, is transported to an alternate world where giant monsters rule, and warriors like Tony Jaa’s unnamed hunter character need to hunt them to survive. That’s about as deep as the plot gets in Monster Hunter, the film serving as a 100-minute VFX display with no heart or anything resembling character development. Sure, the VFX are impressive, and the monster designs are pretty cool, but the film suffers from terrible pacing and a lack of direction.
Paul W.S. Anderson’s movies, which include the likes of Mortal Kombat (1995), Resident Evil (2002), and Alien vs. Predator (2004), have never claimed to be anything other than pure, unadulterated fantasy fun, so expectations were always low for Monster Hunter, and even then, the director has struggled to give the film many redeeming qualities. Its first half drags out the meeting between Jaa’s hunter and Jovovich’s Artemis, and only introduces a couple of different monsters. The second half of the film doesn’t fare much better after we’re introduced to some new characters and are given more details about the alternate world the film is set in. The details here make for the most intriguing part of the movie but are never explored.
The only saving grace in what is a struggling attempt to introduce a new fantasy-action film franchise is the special effects and the overall grand spectacle of it all. The monster effects look fantastic, and the scope is enormous, making for some epic set pieces. Despite those highlights, there isn’t enough else in it to make for an engaging watch. Monster Hunter will definitely sit in the bottom-end of video-game movie adaptations and should be reserved for a braindead-viewing type of movie night.
Fun Fact:
Director Paul W.S. Anderson and the crew traveled to remote locations in South Africa and Namibia to capture the film’s expansive vistas.
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