“Monster Hunter” Review – Milla and Tony Jaa Kick...Each Other?!?

What started as a new fantasy-themed action role playing video game in 2004 for the Playstation 2 and has now reached six game releases across multiple gaming platforms, the Monster Hunter Capcom game series has grown in massive worldwide popularity. You are a hunter, and you hunt monsters! Just like the title states. No mystery there.

One would think a release in the movie version of the video game would warrant that same popularity and high praise. Unfortunately, it seems to have failed the gaming community. Oh, and there’s the supposed curse of video-game-to-movie adaptations that prevents large success from such ventures.

I’ve really enjoyed several video-game-to-movie adaptations, such as Resident Evil, Doom, Silent Hill, most Tomb Raider movies, and yes, the new Sonic the Hedgehog movies (hey, I have a kid! Lol). But even then, I feel the movie version never grasps that experience you get from investing hours on end trying to defeat the game, or the backdrops or atmosphere. This might turn a lot of people away from this movie from all the failures in the past.

Perhaps we need to stop expecting that these adaptations are going to be anywhere close to the original video game, same for book adaptations for that matter. We fans might like these movies more without that expectation!

Funny thing to mention Resident Evil…Monster Hunter is brought to us by the same director, Paul W.S. Anderson. And he’s employed his favorite action actress as the main character yet again, Milla Jovovich. Kind of makes sense…they’re married. And it's worked in the past.

One of the biggest knocks I see out there against Paul W.S. Anderson's directing style is that he spends more energy on the action, style, graphics, etc. above having deeper substance with the characters in his films.

Monster Hunter absolutely falls within this category. Don’t come to Monster Hunter for any deep-thinking story or meaning or getting in deep with these characters. It’s exactly what the previews make it out to be, an action-packed, woman/man vs. monster, fantasy-realm, mindless adventure.

If you’re looking for something like that though, you can find worse movies out there than Monster Hunter.

The storyline is straight forward. Milla is Lieutenant Artemis of Bravo team, a group of Rangers placed in Afghanistan. They are searching for Alpha team, who has disappeared in the sands of what seems like the middle of nowhere. Unexpectedly, a massive unnatural looking storm arrives and overtakes the company. During their attempt to escape, lighting strikes odd out-of-place stone markers on the side of the dirt road, sending them through a portal to “The New World”.

Here they are faced with unfamiliar landscapes, oversized beasts that take out the Rangers one by one with ease, and a mysterious character in Tony Jaa that appears to be helping them at first. Which doesn’t make sense later when Milla and Tony Jaa fight each other, in what looks like a fight to the death. But, after beating each other up in fantastic fashion, they eventually realize the monsters are their common enemy. And that getting to the portal, high up next to a menacing spire, becomes the goal for both of them.

The monsters were impressive, but nothing really new when it comes to monster-type and weaponry. You have a wyvern/dragon type monster called the Rathalos which is devastating to mere humans with its breath of incinerating fire. There’s the Diablos that, like the Graboids in Tremors, can travel really fast underneath the ground in the desert landscape and has impenetrable scales layered over its entire body. As well as several other monsters to make survival literal hell for the humans in this fantastical realm.

Ron Perlman is in the movie, but unfortunately his role is so small he doesn't have a big impact as he normally does. Although...he does wield a massive fire axe and long flowy golden hair!

Any negative comments aside, I did enjoy Monster Hunter, but I didn’t have high expectations going into it. Monster Hunter has really good graphics for the monsters and the action sequences are tense and really well done. I love Milla Jovovich, and this movie is her typical action film, however without much depth to her character like some of her others movies procure. Perhaps, she doesn’t really need much of that for this film. The fight scene between Milla and Tony Jaa was a fun one to experience as they beat the crap out of each other. It just didn't make as much sense in the overall scheme of things, but it was fun to watch.

Also, at PG-13, I was a little surprised with some of the kills being a little more brutal than I expected. The scene with a bunch of baby scorpion/spider-like monsters crawling out of a man’s face and chest was pretty creepy! That was a pretty damned good scene.

As stated already, just enjoy this one for what it is, without high expectations, and for a monster battling thrill ride. You might enjoy it!

Monster Hunter

Released: 12/18/2020

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Action, Fantasy

Running Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson (Event Horizon, Resident Evil Afterlife, Retribution, and The Final Chapter)

Writer: Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Extinction, Afterlife, Retribution, and The Final Chapter)

Stars:

Milla Jovovich as Artemis (All Resident Evil movies, The Fouth kind, The Fifth Element)

Tony Jaa as “Hunter” (Ong-Bak 1, 2, & 3, XXX:Return of Xander Cage)

Ron Perlman as “The Admiral” (Hellboy 1 & 2, Sons of Anarchy, 13 Sins)

Monsters….Diablos, Nerscylla, Rathalos, etc.

IMDB Rating: 5.3 out of 10

Rotten Tomatoes: 46%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 70%

Metascore: 45 out of 100

Streamable on these Apps with subscription at time of Blog Post: N/A

Rentable on these Apps at time of Blog Post: AppleTV, Prime Video, Vudu, Redbox, etc.

Monster Hunter Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3od-kQMTZ9M