Last Updated on August 2, 2021
PLOT: A stoic U.S Army ranger (Milla Jovovich) finds herself trapped on a mysterious world plagued by giant monsters, and forced to team with a lone hunter (Tony Jaa) to survive.
REVIEW: In a non-COVID world, Monster Hunter, the latest from director Paul W.S Anderson, would probably find a comfortable theatrical berth in late January or February. It's the kind of goofy B-film he specializes in, with overseas play always the endgame for what seems to be his attempt to create another franchise like Resident Evil. After all, they’re both based on games by Capcom and star his iconic action heroine wife, Milla Jovovich.
The way things are now, Monster Hunter is unique in that it’s the one fairly big-budget action flick to not go the VOD route sticking to its theatrical date after a controversial run in Asia. In China, an innocuous joke led to it being temporarily pulled from release (the joke in question did not turn up in the version I saw). A mid-level sci-fi flick, Monster Hunter does indeed feel like it's meant to set something up. That’s the film’s biggest problem. It feels like a prelude to bigger movies to come. Almost like a proof of concept reel. Seventy percent of it focuses on the relationship between Jovovich’s ranger, who finds herself split from her team (which includes Diego Boneta, T.I, and Meagan Goode) and forced to team with Tony Jaa, who for once has more to do than cameo. He’s a full lead here.
One of the more interesting things Anderson does is his world-building, with Jaa’s character a native of the world Jovovich has found herself stranded on, meaning he doesn’t speak English. The two have to communicate in another way, and the chemistry between the two is solid, although it doesn’t make a ton of sense that immediately upon meeting each other for the first time they get into an epic martial arts battle. Given that they’re trying to escape monsters, you’d think they’d team-up sooner? This was just tacked-on so both could show their stuff. As always, Jovovich is an effective action heroine and she gets to have a bit more of a sense of humor this time as opposed to her stoic character in the Resident Evil franchise. The bigger names that make up her army crew are in and out of the film pretty quickly, making this mostly a two-hander for her and Jaa, although there’s one cool gore effect early on involving T.I’s character that’s worth looking out for.
Over an hour into the ninety-nine-minute film, Anderson suddenly decides to introduce a whole slew of characters. This includes a giant CGI cat warrior and Ron Perlman (wearing a legendary blonde hair metal wig) as the leader of Jaa’s crew who – natch – is bilingual. It very quickly sets up an entire universe that we’re suddenly plunged into the middle of. This has a jarring effect as it comes out of nowhere while the film races to its unsatisfying climax that sets up a potentially more epic sequel – provided this makes enough money for the franchise to continue. I feel like we're supposed to be familiar with the characters introduced, so if you've played the games this may be the moment you're waiting for. Everyone else will just be confused.
Taken as a B movie, Monster Hunter is decent. I have no familiarity with the game it's based on, but even still it’s not original, with the desert locales a straight lift from Mad Max: Fury Road. There’s loads of action, although it’s all done in a chaotic, shaky-cam way. The monsters look cool, and Anderson got a lot of bang for his buck in terms of CGI, although I must admit I watched it at home on a screener link, so I’m not sure how it all holds up on the big screen.
If movie theaters happen to be open in your neck of the woods and you want a ninety-minute “turn-your-brain-off” kind of movie, Monster Hunter ain’t bad. There are no doubt dozens of better tentpole movies sitting on the shelf right now, but who knows when we’ll finally see any of them. For right now, Monster Hunter is fine.
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