Monster Hunter review: Milla Jovovich stars in a profoundly dumb (but kind of fun) video game adaptation

While video game movie adaptations are nearly always colossal failures (financially and critically), the Resident Evil films have proven to be the rare exception to the rule. Based on the Capcom game series, the films are stylishly directed by Paul W. S. Anderson and star his wife Milla Jovovich as a badass covert operative battling a zombie apocalypse. The franchise now boasts six feature films that combined have grossed over $1 billion dollars — with that kind of success, it stands to reason that Anderson and Capcom would look for another property to develop, which leads to Monster Hunter, a new sci-fi/action hybrid film from Anderson and Jovovich based on Capcom’s best-selling Monster Hunter series.

Jovovich stars as Captain Artemis, the leader of a UN Joint Security Operation. Out in the middle of the desert on some unspecified mission with her team members Link (Tip “T.I.” Harris), Sergeant Marshall (Diego Boneta), Dash (Meagan Good), Steeler (Josh Helman), and Axe (Jin Au-Yeung), they are overtaken by a strange electrical storm that transports them to…another desert landscape, one populated with massive scaly monsters that stalk the team from beneath the sand.

Artemis and her surviving teammates quickly realize they aren’t the only humans in this strange new world; she encounters the mysterious Hunter (martial arts star Tony Jaa), who was also brought to this world from a much earlier time. After the typical action star misunderstanding/fight (even with Jovovich’s action pedigree it’s quite a stretch to think she could go toe-to-toe with Jaa in hand-to-hand combat), the Hunter brings Artemis to meet his fellow hunters who were all deposited in this world when their ship was overcome by the same mysterious lightning storm. Led by Admiral (the great Ron Perlman) the team devises a plan to fight back against the monsters and hopefully return everyone to their own world (it helps that Admiral is the only one who speaks English, something he claims he “picked up” in the apocalyptic wasteland).

There’s no escaping the fact that Monster Hunter is a very silly film, but at least it delivers on the action front. There are a half dozen different monsters, each with their own unique designs and attacks (much like a video game), from titanic scaly horn-rimmed creatures to creepy spider-like beings for the hunters to slaughter. The monster effects are handled well, and Anderson really gets the immense scale of the creatures down. The effects are even more convincing given the majority of the action takes place in the unforgiving sunlight, which is usually anathema to effects designers (there’s a reason why Pacific Rim takes place entirely in the dark).

The film’s propulsive score also adds a sense of grandeur to the proceedings. Composed by Paul Haslinger, the film’s bombastic synth score feels like it was pulled directly from the confines of a dusty old NES cartridge, honouring the film’s video game lineage while amplifying the film’s over-the-top action.

While Monster Hunter delivers on the monster front, the hunters (i.e. – the humans) are nothing to write home about. The main characters are each given a trait or two (Artemis is tough and Tony Ja’s character…likes chocolate?), but they really only exist to fight the monsters with a variety of comically oversized weapons. There’s really nothing else to the film — it’s essentially a series of boss battle fights. On the one hand, there’s almost something refreshing about the barebones approach — if you come to see a movie called Monster Hunter, you might not be that interested in character motivation and extraneous backstory.

Anderson has a very flashy style and has a knack for crafting exciting battle sequences and he gets to really run wild here, with a cadre of kaiju creatures and characters with weapons somehow bigger than their entire bodies. The problem is everything that happens between those battles — the plot is essentially nonexistent, and the actors are given next to nothing to do besides fight monsters. What plot there is makes no sense — when did the Hunters arrive in this world? Based on their grab and their ship it might have been hundreds of years ago. Does time work differently in this world, allowing them to exist for so long? If they’re from the middle-ages, why does one of them have a fauxhawk?

Monster Hunter may not be a great (or good) film, but it’s still a lot of fun. The performances are as wooden as they come (even Ron Perlman seems totally checked out here in a way he’s never been before), but Anderson makes good on the game’s premise in a stylish way. The CGI monsters are mostly convincing, and the battles get progressively more involved as the film marches towards its fairly epic conclusion at the nexus between the two worlds.

In many ways, Monster Hunter is a missed opportunity. With literally a whole world to explore, there was an opportunity to dive deeper and create something for viewers to hook onto, but this film is clearly not concerned with any of that. But if you want to see some monsters get what’s coming to them, you’ve come to the right place.

Monster Hunter opens in select Canadian theatres on Friday, December 18.