Movies based on video games don’t exactly have a great track record, so I went into Monster Hunter without particularly high expectations. On the plus side, it’s directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who directed Mortal Kombat and that’s probably still the best video game film that I’ve seen. On the downside, it’s directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, who directed the godawful Resident Evil movies. Considering that it also stars Milla Jovovich, I was afraid that this was going to be little more than another Resident Evil film in disguise. Fortunately, while mediocre, Monster Hunter is a far better film than any of those. It ain’t great, but it didn’t make me mad and effectively killed some time. That somehow makes it one of the better films of the year.
Unlike Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil, I’ve never played a Monster Hunter game and I have no idea what they are about (though they presumably involve the hunting of monsters, but that’s just an educated guess). Consequently, I have no idea if this is an accurate representation of the games. The plot begins with some sort of Viking ship being attacked by monsters that look like graboids (or sandworms, whichever reference works better for you). Even after seeing the entire film, I’m not sure where or when this takes place, so let’s just move on. We then see a group of American troops, led by Jovovich, being transported into an alternate dimension by a lightening storm and encountering the same monsters that attacked the Viking people. I will stop summarizing the plot here because this is the point at which I stopped understanding it, and even that’s a generous appraisal of my understanding of this film.
I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed the first 30-40 minutes of this movie, as it initially seems like a simple Aliens knockoff. Considering that I had no idea what to expect from this movie, the marine vs. monster formula was a pleasant surprise. Sure, I’ve seen a million such movies, but Jovovich fills the Ripley role well enough and there was some genuinely good action and even a few good jump scares mixed in. It’s interesting to see a PG-13 version of Aliens, though. I always thought that people would bleed if you ripped them in half or impaled them on a giant claw, but it turns out that they just groan and spit a little. Good to know.
The problem is that the movie continues well beyond that point and my level of giving a ship dropped precipitously once our friends from the Viking ship make a reappearance. Then we find out that ancient beings (from where? I don’t know) used technology (made from what? I don’t know) to create a portal to other worlds (why? I don’t know) and protected that technology with monsters (why monsters? Where are the monsters from? Are the monsters hourly or on salary for guard duty? I don’t know). I couldn’t even figure out if the Viking people were from the same world as the monsters, or if they were pulled in from another world like the soldiers. I also don’t understand how much time is supposed to have passed since the ship attack; the film implies both that it was recent and that it was in the ancient past. And why do the Vikings have a talking CGI cat that cooks their meals? What the fuck is going on? I felt like I was watching an Aliens knockoff, went to the bathroom, then walked back into the wrong theater and finished watching a Dungeons & Dragons knockoff….with a talking cat.
So I had no fucking idea what was happening for the second half of this movie, but I can’t say that I was bored. The action is nearly constant and well-done, which the exception of shitty quick-cut editing in some of the hand-to-hand fights. The monsters are impressive in both design and scope and the effects (while entirely computer generated) are surprisingly solid. Milla Jovovich is the only cast member that stands out (largely because the other characters are just stock caricatures) and she can play this role in her sleep, but she is not phoning it in and I found her to be far more engaging and entertaining here than in any of the Resident Evil movies. I’m also pretty sure that she’s a vampire because I saw the first Resident Evil movie in a theater in high school and she still looks exactly the same while I’m now an angry old man that gets excited about his car insurance bill because the edges are well-perforated.
Monster Hunter won’t win any awards and I may not remember it very well a year from now, but it is fun as a mindless, entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. Again, I have no idea how this compares to the games, so it may very well piss off people in its target audience. I don’t know. But if you don’t know shit about the games and can turn your brain off, there are far worse ways to spend your time (like watching the Resident Evil movies).
Image By: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ec/Monster_Hunter_Film_Poster.jpg
