MONSTER HUNTER
***
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Screenplay: Paul W.S. Anderson, based on the video game series by Kaname Fujioka.
Principal cast:
Milla Jovovich
Tony Jaa
Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris
Meagan Good
Diego Boneta
Ron Perlman
Country: Germany/China/Japan/USA/Canada/UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 104 mins.
Australian release date: 1 January 2021.
I’m guessing that the creator of Capcom’s video-game series Monster Hunter, Kaname Fujioka, is a big fan of kaiju (films featuring monsters like Godzilla and Mothra) and H. R. Giger’s designs for the Alien movies, because the monsters that appear in Paul W. S. Anderson’s Monster Hunter are apparently quite close to Kaname-san’s original ideas (of course, I could be completely wrong, having never played Capcom’s game). I’d also suggest that Anderson threw bits of Game of Thrones’ dragons into the mix for the look of his film because the monsters in it all seem a bit familiar. The British director was responsible for the Resident Evil series of movies (based on a Capcom game as well) and, judging by the open ending of Monster Hunter, it’s pretty obvious he is hoping for another on-going franchise here. As with Resident Evil, the heroine is played by his wife, Milla Jovovich, only now she doesn’t have any special powers or mutations, she’s a ranger in the US Army, Captain Natalie Artemis. Lovers of Greek mythology will know that Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, so there are no prizes for guessing what our modern-day Artemis gets up to in the movie (incidentally, the Roman equivalent of Artemis is Diana and who should bear that name but the star of WW84).
The plot of Monster Hunter is pretty slim but a film like this is all about the SFX, so who cares? Capt. Artemis and her crew are patrolling the desert in a location identified only by its latitude and longitude, when a huge, black dust-storm overruns them and they are transported through a mysterious portal to ‘The New World’, leaving ‘Our World’ behind. Almost immediately they have a deadly encounter with the first of a series of monsters that prove almost impossible to kill. Left for dead, Artemis drags herself to a nearby rocky outcrop where she meets a human warrior (Thai martial arts expert Tony Jaa) who is never named because she and he have no common language. They both sense, however, that a forbidding tower in the distance seems to be the source of the power that has transported her, so together they set off to cross the forbidding stretch of land before them. Naturally, though, ‘here be monsters’, as the old maps of uncharted lands used to say.
There’s a lot that isn’t explained in the film version of Monster Hunter but perhaps players of the video-game will understand better what’s going on; for example, in the game, I believe players can earn protective gear and weapons as they advance, whereas in the film, stuff just seems to appear. One minute, Artemis is wearing the remnants of her tattered army uniform, the next she’s clad in some kind or armour, and there’s never any shortage of weapons either, no matter how many get used on their quest. Jovovich doesn’t seem genuinely like a hard-bitten soldier, unlike, say, Sigourney Weaver playing Ripley in the Alien films, although she’s undeniably good in the hand-to-hand combat scenes. A bunch of characters turn up towards the movie’s finale but, with almost no explanation, we don’t really know who they are or care much about them, with the possible exception of Ron Perlman in a very bad wig.
If you’re a fan of the game or a lover of kaiju, you’ll find something to enjoy in Monster Hunter. If you’re neither of those things, hunt up something else to watch in the holidays.
Screenplay: Paul W.S. Anderson, based on the video game series by Kaname Fujioka.
Principal cast:
Milla Jovovich
Tony Jaa
Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris
Meagan Good
Diego Boneta
Ron Perlman
Country: Germany/China/Japan/USA/Canada/UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 104 mins.
Australian release date: 1 January 2021.
I’m guessing that the creator of Capcom’s video-game series Monster Hunter, Kaname Fujioka, is a big fan of kaiju (films featuring monsters like Godzilla and Mothra) and H. R. Giger’s designs for the Alien movies, because the monsters that appear in Paul W. S. Anderson’s Monster Hunter are apparently quite close to Kaname-san’s original ideas (of course, I could be completely wrong, having never played Capcom’s game). I’d also suggest that Anderson threw bits of Game of Thrones’ dragons into the mix for the look of his film because the monsters in it all seem a bit familiar. The British director was responsible for the Resident Evil series of movies (based on a Capcom game as well) and, judging by the open ending of Monster Hunter, it’s pretty obvious he is hoping for another on-going franchise here. As with Resident Evil, the heroine is played by his wife, Milla Jovovich, only now she doesn’t have any special powers or mutations, she’s a ranger in the US Army, Captain Natalie Artemis. Lovers of Greek mythology will know that Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, so there are no prizes for guessing what our modern-day Artemis gets up to in the movie (incidentally, the Roman equivalent of Artemis is Diana and who should bear that name but the star of WW84).
The plot of Monster Hunter is pretty slim but a film like this is all about the SFX, so who cares? Capt. Artemis and her crew are patrolling the desert in a location identified only by its latitude and longitude, when a huge, black dust-storm overruns them and they are transported through a mysterious portal to ‘The New World’, leaving ‘Our World’ behind. Almost immediately they have a deadly encounter with the first of a series of monsters that prove almost impossible to kill. Left for dead, Artemis drags herself to a nearby rocky outcrop where she meets a human warrior (Thai martial arts expert Tony Jaa) who is never named because she and he have no common language. They both sense, however, that a forbidding tower in the distance seems to be the source of the power that has transported her, so together they set off to cross the forbidding stretch of land before them. Naturally, though, ‘here be monsters’, as the old maps of uncharted lands used to say.
There’s a lot that isn’t explained in the film version of Monster Hunter but perhaps players of the video-game will understand better what’s going on; for example, in the game, I believe players can earn protective gear and weapons as they advance, whereas in the film, stuff just seems to appear. One minute, Artemis is wearing the remnants of her tattered army uniform, the next she’s clad in some kind or armour, and there’s never any shortage of weapons either, no matter how many get used on their quest. Jovovich doesn’t seem genuinely like a hard-bitten soldier, unlike, say, Sigourney Weaver playing Ripley in the Alien films, although she’s undeniably good in the hand-to-hand combat scenes. A bunch of characters turn up towards the movie’s finale but, with almost no explanation, we don’t really know who they are or care much about them, with the possible exception of Ron Perlman in a very bad wig.
If you’re a fan of the game or a lover of kaiju, you’ll find something to enjoy in Monster Hunter. If you’re neither of those things, hunt up something else to watch in the holidays.