Rated PG-13 for sequences of creature action and violence throughout.
Captain Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and her team are on a mission to discover what happened to a fellow group of soldiers. Their only clue being a message that sounds like they were attacked by something; and when they arrive at their last known location, they are nowhere to be found. Their search is cut short when a massive storm quickly engulfs them and throws them off the road. When they emerge, they find themselves somewhere unfamiliar; a stretch of desert not on their maps. Turns out, that storm was actually a mystical gateway that transported them to another dimension. Soon the team are confronted by the gigantic and merciless creatures that rule over this new world; completely immune to their guns and cannons. If Artemis is going to get her team home, she’ll have to team up with a skilled Hunter (Tony Jaa) and learn his ways of killing the monsters in order to survive. Monster Hunter, based on the Capcom video game franchise of the same name, comes to us from the same people who created the film series adaptation of Resident Evil. It is helmed by writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson, who once again casts his wife Milla in a role that doesn’t actually come from the games. But as someone who finds guilty pleasure in their previous game adaptation, I was actually looking forward to this movie despite never having played the game. Unfortunately, this new attempt leaves something to be desired. And while there are still moments of fun to be had, Monster Hunter feels more hollow and tame when compared to Anderson’s Resident Evil series. It really suffers from the same franchise mentality that plagues most big budget action films, as the film seems more interested in setting up what comes next rather than what’s happening now. And while the Resident Evil movies did their fair share of sequel setups, each film at least had a mostly conclusive story before leaving us on a cliffhanger for the next one. Monster Hunter doesn’t accomplish this feeling; and often feels like a chunk taken out of a much larger film. We’re given very little time with Artemis and her team at the beginning before they’re thrown into the next world, and the movie ends right after an epic battle just as another one is about to begin. It’s clear that the studio put a little too much faith into Anderson’s vision. They seemed to fully believe that, with everything and everyone assembled, magic would strike again and they would have another big franchise on their hands. But because of this, they allowed him to lean much more heavily into his television-esque style, and the ending feels unsatisfying as a result. It feels like we’ve been cheated out of something better than what we got. It’s also not helped by the incredibly short yet slow story he’s crafted. He was never known for writing great stories or characters, and he made up for that with some usually great action scenes. Here, his script seems especially thin and low on action. There’s a whole sequence around 10 minutes long of Artemis just walking around the desert covered in wounds. It isn’t until far into the second half that the action kicks in, and not long after that does the movie end. There’s also a major tonal imbalance with the script. From what I know about the games, they have a decidedly goofy aesthetic against the fantastical monster hunting. You are able to have an anthropomorphic cat assistant in the game. For the movie, while Anderson includes things like humanoid cats, he mostly tries to work with the gritty aesthetic he brought to the Resident Evil films. It’s hard to tell what kind of tone he wanted to strike, and what he gives us doesn’t gel together well. There are some fun action sequences, usually when Artemis and the Hunter are facing off against a monster. There also aided by Jovovich’s lead performance. She does well in the role of Captain Artemis. It’s not a fantastic performance, but her personal charisma and ability to hold the screen during the action is one of the reasons why portions of the film are enjoyable. Monster Hunter tries to be a “so bad, it’s good” video game adaptation like some of Anderson’s other attempts, and he does still have his chops for good action. Unfortunately, he isn’t able to strike the same dumb fun feeling that he brought to his previous game adaptation. This film is far too focused on setting up potential future adventures to be the epic adventure it seems to think it is, and as a result, can’t cover up the shoddy filmmaking under the surface.
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