Monster Hunter is my favorite video game franchise, ever. I've been playing the series since I was 12 years old, and Monster Hunter Rise is conveniently launching a few days after my birthday. And sometime in summer, Monster Hunter Stories is getting a sequel. I've put thousands of hours of playtime down, across all the games. I need to clarify this because today... I throw myself at the live action Monster Hunter movie, directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. A movie that is often considered mediocre at best, and that's before you even consider how (in)accurate the movie is to the source material. Why am I looking at this movie, then? Because I love Monster Hunter and I am contractually obligated to talk about Monster Hunter. (note, I don't really have contractual obligations, this is just a joke)
But before we begin, you know those Monster Hunter games I love so much? Those are still great. In fact, you should go play those games. They are in fact, amazing games, even if they have a somewhat steep learning curve. But would I recommend the movie before playing the games? No. The games are so much better than the movie. But even if you have played Monster Hunter I am still hesitant to encourage people to check out the movie. Because the best way to describe this movie is like a Michael Bay Transformers movie. Lots of cool action scenes, but a borderline nonsensical story. So the quality of your experience is directly proportional to your ability to find ironic enjoyment out of things.
The Monster Hunter movie begins with a chase scene where a Sand-Ship gets attacked by a Diablos (the big horned creature pictured above). This scene is fine, and even has some cameos from the cast of Monster Hunter World, which I liked. …Then we warp to the real world and get introduced to our real protagonist, Captain Artemis, played by Milla Jovovich (aka Paul Anderson's wife). First off, Jovovich is once again playing a nigh-unstoppable superhero with more plot armor than a Isekai anime protagonist (in fact the whole film feels like an Isekai, but not in a good way). Second of all, this whole movie almost manages to go through its whole runtime without saying the protagonist's name. I kid you not, we're not even told the protagonist's name until the climax of the movie! Just …why did you take so long to reveal the soldier lady's name? And before you ask, no, her name being Artemis isn't relevant to the plot at all. So there was no plot twists or anything that required her name to be hidden. I'll give them points for naming the protagonist after Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the Hunt. Considering this is a Monster Hunter movie, having the protagonist be named after a literal Hunter Goddess is a good choice. It's one of the few genuinely good choices in this movie, but still. You got to look for those silver linings.
Anyway, Captain Artemis' squad gets zapped by lightning and launched into Monster Hunter land because we can't have the ENTIRE movie in Monster Hunter land, no, that's preposterous! What did you think this was, a fun fantasy movie? Well you're WRONG because we need to get United States soldiers in the movie, and last time I checked, the U.S. doesn't exist in Monster Hunter Land! Oh, you wanted the movie to ACTUALLY focus on a professional Monster Hunter? Well too bad, here's a soldier lady. Artemis' squad then gets massacred by Diablos and are forced to retreat into a mountainous canyon area. Also, this is a nitpick, but so much of this movie takes place in a desert region that the scene where Artemis visits an oasis (which is barely 2 minutes long) is just about the only scene in the entire movie with actual plant life. Why is this a big deal? Because in Monster Hunter proper, deserts are few and far between, with only one desert per game (if any). It isn't even a good looking or creatively designed desert. This is a franchise with above-ground coral reefs, ancient shrines to past civilizations, flooded forests and even the still rotting corpse of a monster so huge its dead body counts as an explorable region. Yet all we get is a desert, an oasis, and a zappy sky tower. Like, they somehow picked the most generic areas in the series for the setting. It's almost as if they were cutting corners by using simpler location designs. HMM...
Back on track, most of Artemis' team gets brutally killed off in a sequence that feels more at home in Resident Evil than Monster Hunter. Oh, funny I should mention that. You know who also directed the Resident Evil movies, the same movies that do nothing but disappoint that fandom with their mediocrity? PAUL ANDERSON. Anyway, the few soldiers that survive the Diablos attack are killed by generic spider things that the movie really wants to convince you are supposed to be Nerscylla. But the spiders aren't big enough to be Nerscylla, they seem weak to sunlight (a trait that Nerscylla never showed in the series proper), and these spiders build hives underground and live in large groups, when in the games Nerscylla is a solitary predator. They got the venomous stingers right, and basically nothing else. Heck, they didn't even get the color scheme right. The spiders are almost completely grey in color in this movie, when in the games Nerscylla has bright orange markings on its legs and bright purple spikes on its body. Honestly, if they were going to change so much about Nerscylla just to make them work as the early-game threat they might as well invented a new spider to use just for this movie.
So our brave soldier lady survives the bootleg Nerscylla swarm because plot armor and meets up with the Hunter. Who's the Hunter? An actual Monster Hunter, in a movie called Monster Hunter! Who would have thought that a Hunter of Monsters would be in movie about Monster Hunting? The Hunter is played by Tony Jaa and is the single best thing in this whole movie. But first we have two, almost back-to-back fight scenes against the only two human characters in the whole movie at this point... Because PLOT. And the whole situation is especially weird because during the second fight, the Hunter falls into a
So Artemis and the Hunter spend a few days planning for a battle against Diablos, and we get a neat montage of Artemis learning how to Monster Hunter in a movie called Monster Hunter. And she naturally gravitates to using Dual Blades because nothing screams "action hero" like waving a pair of flaming swords. Even though Sword 'n' Shield is better for beginners and if people somehow wanted to try out the games because they thought Artemis was cool, it would make more sense for her to use the simple, easy to understand Sword 'n' Shield over the complicated, resource intensive Dual Blades. Heck, even giving her a Bowgun would make more sense thematically. Up until this point Artemis has been using military firearms to defend herself, and Bowguns are the next logical step, since they are shotguns, mortar launchers, Gatling guns, and sniper rifles rolled into a single weapon. Again, nitpicking, but at this point I have lost all traces of sanity while doing this review, and now take a strange pleasure in nitpicking this one specific movie.
So our duo's grand plan to get past the Diablos is to put it to sleep using a Nerscylla stinger, thus requiring the team to go out and kill a Nerscylla. And I... don't have a problem with this. Yeah, big shocker. But in Monster Hunter proper, you often need to fight a different monster to craft the weapon/armor you need to counter whatever boss you're stuck on. But anyway, Artemis and the Hunter go off to fight Diablos, resulting in the best fight in the whole movie (which admittedly isn't saying a whole lot, since even this fight has problems). Oh, and that poisonous arrow the Hunter and Artemis spent so long making? Diablos just shrugs off the poisonous arrow and keeps fighting like nothing's wrong. And it's not like the shot missed, or didn't get directly into the creature's system, since the arrow landed in its eye. So it kind of just feels like that whole ordeal was filler meant to pad out the film's run time. Like, c'mon man. If you're going to shoot Diablos in the eyeball with a poisonous arrow, and show the shot land in all of its grisly detail, have it actually matter and pay off in the long run.
Also, in that same fight scene, the Hunter stabs the Diablos in the forehead. …With a Greatsword. Again, nitpicking, but the Greatsword isn't really a stabbing weapon. It's more of a smashing weapon. And because the weapon designs in this movie are all based off of the "bone"-tier weapons, it means that this specific Greatsword's tip is flat, which would make it terrible for stab attacks. This isn't a game accuracy nitpick, this is me pointing out that the design of the sword makes no realistic sense for that kind of attack. Yes, I realize the irony of wanting a 350lb sword made out of monster bones to be used somewhat realistically. But this movie's whole selling point is that it's a more realistic interpretation of the games. So either come up with fight scene choreography that makes sense for the weapon you're using, or redesign the weapon so that cool move you want to use actually makes sense. Also, Artemis using the turret from her squad's half-buried truck is supposed to be an exciting comeback for the heroes, but this also feels like character-stupidity since Artemis saw in the intro that regular bullets can't damage Diablos. So her counting on the turret to finish off the beast feels kind of ridiculous. But anyway, Artemis kills the Diablos, but her new Hunter friend gets knocked unconscious. So Artemis carves out a scale from the now-dead Diablos and uses it as a sled to pull her friend across the desert while he heals up. Once the Hunter recovers, the group reaches an oasis where we get a Rathalos tease (Rathalos being the main mascot of the whole franchise). We also get reunited with the Monster Hunter World crew. …Who then knocks out Artemis and takes her prisoner, after the surprise reveal that the leader of the crew (officially known as The Admiral) can speak English. Oh yeah, the humans native to Monster Hunter land can't speak English and speak almost exclusively in a fictional, made up language. But then they immediately release her once the Hunter tells his buddies that she's cool...? But who cares about that, they put the Meowscular Chef in the movie, and he looks really weird as a pseudo-realistic CGI creature. But he's the second-best thing in the whole movie, because even though they made him look kind of weird and gross, we still get lots of jokes about the inherent absurdity of a manly cat chef.
Anyway, the Admiral gives us a good ole' exposition dump as he explains that the reason everything sucks in Monster Hunter land is because people from the "real" world came in and caused the Ancients, who were keeping everything in check, to die out. …Apparently. Never mind the fact that the ancient civilizations throughout the series were shown (multiple times) to be destroyed by literal gods among beasts. No no, they died out because people from the real world came in and ruined everything, somehow. We get no further elaboration on this. They never say if it was a war, or if it was a plague, just, "Your people came into my world, now everything sucks." Anyway, the Admiral teaches Artemis about Rathalos (who apparently is an "guardian" of the ancient civilization), and from here on out the movie won't stop hyping how much of a threat Rathalos is. And the movie won't stop reminding you about how Rathalos' only weakness is getting hit just before it breathes fire. As opposed to lightning, like in the original games? Speaking of, every single character in the movie seems to use only fire element weapons. At first I thought the fire was the movie's interpretation of Dual Blades' Demon Stance ability, since the pose Artemis strikes to light her swords on fire is the same pose for Demon Stance. But no, they just put fire on all the weapons. When the only boss monster left at this point is canonically immune to fire. It gets even dumber because the post credit scene has the Hunter using a Lightning-infused Insect Glaive, so they clearly had access to other elements, but stuck with fire because "lol, fire swords look cool, bro." And this mentality is especially bad with the Admiral's weapon, a Switch Axe. Throughout the movie's third act, the Admiral fights with a flaming Switch Axe that can shoot out a shockwave of fire to attack from a distance. Switch Axe, in the games, do not have this ability at all. The optimist in me wants to say "Oh, that's just the movie's interpretation of the Zero Sum Discharge attack." (The Zero Sum Discharge is basically a point-blank shotgun-style explosion) But the realist in me wants to say that they literally just invented an ability just for this movie for the sole purpose of cool factor. And cool factor just for cool factor's sake makes the whole thing less cool.
So the hunters head off for the big zappy sky tower to try and close the portals to other worlds. But oh hey, we got a final boss battle first! With none other than the mascot of the whole franchise, the King of the Skies himself, Rathalos! And during the whole fight the Handler (the lady with the goggles) is completely useless! Just like in the games! Points for authenticity! Anyway, halfway through the fight Artemis is warped backed to the real world, and rushed into a chopper by Insert Military Force Here. And here's where we actually get Artemis' name! From a random soldier just casually reading her dog tags. Okay...? Still not sure why they waited so long to tell us the name of the protagonist. But oh no, Rathalos is the real world too, and completely bodies everyone. Artemis survives the rampage because plot armor, and delivers the killing blow by throwing a flare down Rathalos' throat while it charges up a fire blast. But oh wait, it's not actually dead and gets back up again! But also oh wait, the Hunter shows up and saves the day by shooting the fire dragon breathing fire with fire arrows covered in fire. Again, Rathalos is supposed to be immune to fire. It cannot be burned. So the only explanation for the fire arrow is, "lol, fire arrows look cool, bro." And this actually works! Shooting the fire dragon breathing fire with a fire arrow covered in fire is what kills the fire dragon that breathes fire! …Just, why do you not make sense, Monster Hunter movie?
But it's not over yet, dear Internet strangers. Because we got a fight with Gore Magala coming up! Gore Magala, the Xenomorph of the Monster Hunter universe! Bringer of Plagues, Herald of Madness! Surely they'll do this sleek, elegant, hero-killing boss of a monster justice, right? Right!? WRONG! They Amazing Spider Man 2'd Gore Magala and have him exist purely as a sequel tease! That is a cardinal sin of cinematography. You don't just go around Amazing Spider-Man 2'ing your best villain! And Gore Magala just shows up out of nowhere as well. No foreshadowing, no hype, just... Appears. And thus, our story ends an obnoxious cliff-hanger, and with Artemis deciding that she needs to go back to Monster Hunter Land despite finally getting home again. Why? Because PLOT! Also, side note, but throughout the movie, Artemis would pull out a box with a wedding ring inside and kiss the ring. So she's obviously married right? I presume so, but we never see her spouse, and they aren't mentioned at all (Artemis herself never explains why she does this). So... What was up with that?
But you want to know the biggest crime this movie commits? The music. Monster Hunter as a franchise has always had amazing orchestral music, from triumphant horns to thundering drums, to chilling piano notes to shrill violins. One of the reasons to even consider checking out the games is because of the music. And this movie uses... Dubstep. Not even good sounding dubstep. Not even a dubstep remix of songs from the franchise. If the final battle in a Monster Hunter related piece of media does NOT have you blaring some version of Proof of a Hero by the end, you know you done messed up. That's like if My Hero Academia didn't play a version of You Say Run whenever something awesome was about to happen.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "Wow, Spencer hated this movie! He pointed out so much bad stuff in it!" Hear me out. This movie right here, despite it's MANY flaws, does have some positives. The monsters themselves are, with the exception of Nerscylla, accurate in their designs and animations. They may have butchered the behavior, abilities and weaknesses of the monsters, but at least Diablos LOOKS like a Diablos, and at least Rathalos LOOKS like a Rathalos. Though, from my understanding, the monster designs and animations were done by Toho. Otherwise known as the guys who created Godzilla. The action scenes are entertaining, so long as you don't know how to Monster Hunter while watching a movie about Monster Hunting, and enjoy them on surface-level spectacle. And Tony Jaa's character is a delight, partly because his facial expressions and mannerisms are rather endearing. The weapons and armor designs are also accurate to their game counterparts, even if the weapons feel less impressive when you realize that they based the designs off of the default starter weapons the games give you for free. Honestly, the best thing about this movie, which is also its greatest downside, is that they managed to perfectly capture the LOOK of Monster Hunter, but failed to understand how to recreate the FEEL of the franchise. It isn't dark. It isn't gritty. This is a franchise about people building their entire society around regularly-held big game hunts with dinosaurs, dragons, werewolves, spiders, and everything in between. The people here go out and face danger on a almost daily basis with a spring in their step and a smile on their face. And they have talking cats handle their chores, like farming and cooking. Yeah, humanity has to live alongside potential world-ending monstrosities, but they have fun doing so. You never really feel like the hunters in this movie have that level of bravado or excitement for their work.
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| The screenshots here on out come from comes from the games, by the way. |
But as an exercise in imagination, let's say that we could make our own movie, with visual effects and costume/prop design on par with the movie we got (since this movie does LOOK good). How can we fix this story and make the movie more enjoyable? Assuming we have to use the same monsters as the ones good ole' Mr. Anderson chose, of course. The first change we could do is making Artemis (and her team) native to Monster Hunter land and just skipping all of the real world stuff. This movie is called Monster Hunter, not "Soldier Lady in Monster Hunter Land." Our film could open up with a team of rookie hunters being let loose and allowed to go after their first big monster, Nerscylla. Something in the hunt goes wrong, and Artemis' lover (who for the sake of simplicity will be treated as another hunter in this scenario) gets crippled, injured or killed, depending on how dark we want the story to be. Artemis swears vengeance against this one specific monster (let's say it's Gore Magala because Gore Magala is the perfect final boss monster) that happened to attack her significant other, and travels the land in search of ways to act out her revenge. She meets up with Tony Jaa's character, who takes her under his wing and teaches her some cool techniques and even helps Artemis build up better weapons and armor. Artemis and her friends (in this scenario the team would still be alive) track down Gore Magala's lair and prepare a final confrontation. Maybe have Artemis trick Gore Magala into attacking a formerly docile Diablos or Rathalos so you can have an epic CGI kaiju battle. But Gore Magala is defeated, and Artemis carves off a claw or something to keep as a trophy, as a reminder of her victory and how much pain she went through to get there. Artemis and her hunter team go back to their home village, and they are treated to a hero's feast. The End. Doesn't that sound more engaging than what we got? This is something I came up with on the spot. It's not hard to come up with a decent story in the Monster Hunter universe. Heck, if the movie literally copy-pasted the plot of Monster Hunter Tri (rookie hunter is sent to a backwater coastal village and has to stop unnatural earthquakes from disrupting the ecosystem), Monster Hunter 4 (a team of hunters chase after an elusive plague-bringing beast) or even Monster Hunter World (veteran hunter is hired to protect a team of scholars as they attempt to colonize a newly discovered continent), it would have been better than the plot we got. Heck, the official DLC Event tie in for Monster Hunter World: Iceborne has a better written story than this movie. And that DLC was meant to promote the movie! It's a glorified advertisement! It even fixes some plot holes like "How did the Admiral learn to speak English?" You know your writing is laughably awful if a DLC cross-promotion update has better writing than the entire movie it's promoting.
So overall, would I recommend the Monster Hunter movie? It's a competent, if barebones and by the numbers action movie that almost completely fails to represent the series it's based on. It would probably be a good time with friends, provided you all had a drink and like nitpicking everything wrong with movies like this one. And the sad thing is you just know this movie is getting a sequel because Paul Anderson knows how to milk a franchise for all it's worth (see the Resident Evil movies for more info). So... There. That's the most negative I've ever gotten in a blog post. And keep in mind, I'm not a negative person! The reason why I usually talk about things I like or hold in high regard is precisely because I prefer talking about things I enjoy. I enjoy Monster Hunter, but this film is wonderful amalgamation of lack of research, bizarre choreography and editing choices, and nonsense writing. Somehow this movie manages to go out of its way to irritate the entire Monster Hunter fandom, up to and including myself. And people outside the fandom are just like "who are these people and why are they complaining about a silly action flick?"
But at least Monster Hunter Rise looks awesome! And Monster Hunter Stories 2 looks cool. So even though the Monster Hunter movie was pretty bad, the games are still worthwhile. So if you somehow saw the Monster Hunter movie and had no prior experience with the series, I'll just say this. I'm sorry. Sorry that your first impression of such an amazing series is a lazy, mediocre action flick written and directed by a man more concerned with making his wife look cool than making quality content. This movie doesn't represent the series. If anything, it's an insult to it. But the good news is this movie underperformed at the box office (can't imagine why), so hopefully all that shameless Gore Magala sequel baiting will age as well as that kissing scene between Luke and Leia in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. …And the sad thing is, as bad as this movie is, at least I enjoyed it. Granted, I liked nitpicking everything the movie did wrong more than admiring the things the movie did right, but at least I got some enjoyment out of it. But trust me when I say this, there are movies even worse than this, such as Norm of the North or The Emoji Movie. Those movies are just boring on top of being bad, and it's better, in my opinion, to be entertainingly bad like the Monster Hunter movie than just being boring, because at least you're getting some kind of emotional stimuli. But anyway, hope you enjoyed me spiraling into madness from trying to analyze and overthink a movie that clearly was not meant to be thought about too hard. Now if you excuse me, I'll just be waiting for Monster Hunter Rise to come out, and probably do nothing else except play that game for weeks on end.
