Monster Hunter

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

Monster Hunter is a loose adaptation of the Monster Hunter video game series, in which a squad of US military rangers are transported to another world. Here they must ally with the local hunters in order to survive the giant monstrous creatures that call this foreign world home. The film really hits its peak in the first act, taking a group of recognisably tough and capable soldiers and placing them in somewhere completely unknown. Watching the protagonists respond to and attempt to survive this hostile landscape is a thrilling watch, particularly when things go seriously wrong and main characters start dropping long before you expect them to. It crafts an element of horror and danger that really raises the stakes early on. In the second act the strength comes from Lt. Artemis forming a bond with the Hunter, seeing these conflicting warriors come together and raise one another up brought a bond that this film seriously needed. The cinematography holds attention well throughout, packed with large expansive shots that flaunt the impressive setting and visual effects. The special effects are the real triumph of this film, containing some really great designs for all of the major monster threats we see our heroes come up against over the course of the feature.

 

Tony Jaa, who played The Hunter, is a fun, if not irritable fighting companion to pair against Jovovich; Jaa has this boundless charismatic energy that plays well in the scenes where he is character bonds or jokes with Artemis.

 

However, the best performance came from Milla Jovovich, who played Artemis. I honestly was hesitant to see Jovovich lead an action video game-based franchise again, she seemed tired enough of Resident Evil by the end. But this was a role who seriously carried the weight of the narrative through and she did a solid job at it. Every scene in which soldierly camaraderie had to be portrayed, you would find Jovovich right at the heart of that charismatic energy. She also really lent herself to the role of leader, often taking charge of the performers in front of her and commanding respect as a character throughout. Artemis is a tough role, she has this hardened flinty exterior that is worn away and built back over the course of the story. I was really impressed with how Jovovich portrayed the grief her role felt for her fellow fallen soldiers and the deep longing you could see exuding from her to return homeward.

 

Monster Hunter has a fairly sturdy first act but the problem with the film is just how little plot there really is. The entire premise of the feature is to be transported to the Monster Hunter world, to survive it and then hopefully to make it home by the end of the film; and maybe kill a couple of monsters on the way. But there isn't enough to fill these acts to make the story seem richer than it is; in the first act you barely bond with the soldier team before they are all wiped out and the second act takes a very long time to show the Hunter and Artemis fight each other before fighting a big monster. By the time you reach the final act you expect something like one more big monster before our hero goes home. Instead we get this big exposition dump about a magical tower, magical portals, some beings called the Ancients and the great Guardian protecting all of this. Suddenly there is a dump of information right as there is next to no film left to watch, which makes the conclusion to the feature feel both overstuffed and rushed. The final fight in a weird moment because the majority of it doesn't even take place in the Monster Hunter world, the film yanks us back rather roughly into the cruder and more plain 'real' world for our final showdown. All in all the film is a lackluster blockbuster that seriously trips over itself right at the end, and even after all that it still has the nerve to sell us on a sequel. Hard pass, thank you. The editing for the feature had some very rushed cuts and often big action scenes that looked good were cut up in a way that ruined the pacing of the sequence. The score for the film felt like it had been made for an entirely different movie, like it should've been made for a B-grade Blade Runner knock-off rather than this fantastical action romp.  

T.I., Meagan Good, Diego Boneta and Josh Helman, who played Link, Dash, Marshall and Steeler respectively, were such a generic group of soldier personas that they were each quick to forget about in the film; none of these roles ever really left much of a mark on the plot and really just served the feature by dying. Ron Perlman, who played the Admiral, was a very odd role that Perlman didn't know how to ground; this was a bravado role that bumbled through a lot of exposition without ever really placing meaning behind the words.

Considering this is from the creative team behind the Resident Evil franchise it certainly exceeded my expectations. I would give Monster Hunter a 4.5/10.