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Hollywood Film Review

Johnson Thomas

Mining a Video Game for Puerile Entertainment

Film: Monster Hunter 

 

Cast: Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, T.I., Ron Perlman, Diego Boneta, Meagan Good, Josh Helman, Jin Au-Yeung

Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

Rating: * *

Runtime: 104 min.

Inspired by CATCOM’s popular videogame, Paul W.S. Anderson’s long gestating(since 2012) attempt to score another relentless franchise run for his muse Milla Jovovich, fails to raise the bar on video game to screen adaptations. The resident evil here is a relentless turnover of monsters crisscrossing fantastical dimensions. This first instalment in what is a sort of a test run for future monster games in the cinemas, opens in a vast desert with a group of U.S. Army Rangers led by Captain Natalie Artemis (Milla Jovovich), on patrol. Obviously, the idea comes from the US’ attempts to gain hegemony in the middle-east and might just be an oblique morale booster for beleaguered US troops in the region.

 

The prologue opens with a racially varied group of Monster hunters in a Viking era boat battling fire breathing demons across a fictitious stormy sea when one of them, The Hunter (Tony Jaa) falls foul and vanishes into another dimension. Several full moons later we see him taking Captain Artemis captive after rescuing her from a giant sized, fearsome, never-say-die hibernating raptor like beast. After that, it’s all about combining resources to escape back into his home realm and then back again.  

 

The narrative throws up combination sandstorm/lightning/thunderstorms, giant monsters and alternative universes at will, making it all seem entirely gamey and unrelenting. After vanquishing the first (which takes up most of the first half) they are confronted by another and then another. So the feel is that of a game with several levels of difficulty.  Anderson’s narrative is not interested in building a credible aesthetic. Instead he turns on the fantasy elements, aided by cutting edge CGI and makes this experience a wasteland of lost opportunities. 

 

After a brief altercation between The Hunter and Capt. Artemis they get on the same page, so, thereafter it’s about teaming up to annihilate the common enemy. Even the legend building is given short shrift with fire breathing monster dragons ending up falling prey to relentless fire power. The monster design is rather uninteresting. The effort to drum up a fearsome rush of adrenaline falls flat and even Jaa remains underutilised all through-out. Jovovich stays with the fight but it all feels repetitive and uninteresting. And then there’s the inimical Ron Perlman ‘transportaled’ into the action accompanied by a team of hunters, including a giant cat who acts like a human. That’s exactly when the mood lightens up a bit and you see a bit of jousting and jesting - giving us a glimpse of what fun this monstrous misstep could well have been. But Alas!

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