A portal transports Cpt. Artemis and an elite unit of soldiers to a strange world where powerful monsters rule with deadly ferocity. Faced with relentless danger, the team encounters a mysterious hunter who may be their only hope to find a way home.
Trailer
Reviews
Per Gunnar Jonsson
9
By Per Gunnar Jonsson
It appears that this movie is either quite hated or quite liked. I guess it is not that surprising though given that it is based on a video game with a very strong following so if the movie is deviating from canon, and I understand that it does, it will not matter how good or bad a movie is.
Well, I have never played the game so I am not burdened with Monster Hunter canon so I have to say that I very much liked this movie. It does not really hurt that I quite like Milla Jovovich as well of course. Ron Perlman is also a favourite of mine and I really wish that he would have been in more of the movie. As it was he was only present briefly at the beginning and then a little bit at the end.
Anyway, this is a fantasy, action movie of my liking. Clash of cultures, huge monsters and lots and lots of shooting, slicing, kicking and stabbing action. The story is rather simple but not really bad at all. The ships navigating the sand was a bit weird and those huge weapons they were dragging around a bit silly but then those are part of the canon.
At first I got a bit annoyed by Artemis and Hunter starting to fight each other and thought, oh no, not another one of those silly, illogical stories again, but that sorted itself out rather quickly. And the bait jokes were rather funny actually.
The CGI and the monsters were great, as far as I am concerned. When I first saw the diablos I thought that they had kind of copied the sandworms from Dune but when they, or it rather since we only got to see one actually emerge, it was quite different.
The part where Artemis is thrown back to Earth and followed by the big fire breathing beastie is probably not liked at all by the fans of the video games since it is probably not very canon but I definitely liked it. I whish they would have done a bit more surprise, what the f… and mayhem scenes there actually.
The ending didn’t really leave that much of a conclusion but, unlike what some people seems to feel, I didn’t think it was a bad ending. It certainly prepared the field for a sequel and I for one really hope one will come.
Kamurai
6
By Kamurai
Good watch, could watch again, and can recommend.
I'm not a real fan of the video game, so I think I can safely say that you don't need to know anything from the game other than it has "big monsters".
The only thing I really see from the video game world is that the characters sort of "level up" as the movie progresses. I guess it sort of does world building in the same way by having "levels" or areas, but that's much more subtle.
The movie uses isolation in several different ways and has some clever uses of limited resources to solve problems, but it is quite a bit of just fighting big monsters.
I can't say that you'll enjoy this if you're into Kaiju movies, even though it has quite a bit of creature feature aspects to it.
Worth the watch, but not exactly the most substantial story.
DallasBob
N/A
By DallasBob
Okay, what to say? It's not the worst I've seen, and I think it could have been better. The Resident Evil chick is a consistantly above average action star. I put her up there as a female Bruce Willis or Jason Statham. And she delivered in this movie the same pazazz as her other action flicks.
The Story, like the budget, was not that deep. And if there was significant money put into this movie, then I don't think it measured up to expectations; producer nor fan. Again, the movie was not terrible, but I didn't exactly move to the edge of my seat either.
The fight between her and her soon to be friend, was a bit...contrived. To me, it was his world, she wasn't an elite soldier, and he was an experienced hunter, so while their fight was well coordinated, I had an especially difficult time believing she could keep up with the hunter in a fight; had to mark it up as movie-magic or "it's in the script."
Special effects were good for what they were and the actors did a good job of acting. I don't think the star spent enough time interacting with the Monster Hunter world. I get they were out in the middle of nowhere, but having her go through a city or market to find a 'macguffin' to help with getting her home, might have added a bit more submersion for the audience. But just putting her in a set of Monster Hunter armor and spending 5 minutes on their sand-ship felt like what it was, cheap or 'shot-on-a-budget.'
The ending was okay too. I like how the dragon took out the modern aircraft, and was impressed how they were able to shoot everything in the daytime and still make it look feasible to the action. If there is a sequel, then I hope they get a bit more Conan-ny with the overall feel; i.e., more Monster Hunter world & residents. (no pun intended)
The movie is not terrible, but I won't be rushing out to get a copy, nor looking for it online. It's entertaining for a Netchix n' Chill night.
