Monster Hunter

When you see the movie trailer, you can't wait to see this film. When you see this film, you'll wish you stopped at the trailer.

Aside from the outstanding visuals, effects and landscapes, the awesome cast was wasted on an infantile convoluted screenplay riddled with plot and technical issues. There's hardly any coherent continuity in the writing, and the ridiculous long dragged out and unnecessary scenes made the 103 minute runtime feel over 3 hours long. I don't mind mindless entertainment, but when I feel a 5th grader could've come up with a better balanced script, the entertainment becomes annoying.

Writer, producer and director of the Resident Evil franchise Paul W. S. Anderson, also cast his wife Milla Jovovich, as well as Tony Jaa and Ron Perlman. As a seasoned filmmaker, his directing was horrible. The fighting action scenes had the worst and amateurish choreography I've seen in a long time. I feel bad for Tony Jaa to have this nonsense on his resume. Many scenes could've been cut down and/or omitted so the runtime be no more than 85-90 mins, as that's all this story - if you can even call it that, would be able to fill.

Anderson's writing was horrid, as mentioned above, and my heading "When you're on a bad acid trip at 8, but need to hand in your screenplay at 9" is the most realistic for this meme. I'm a fan of the Resident Evil franchise, but I'm not sure how anyone who read Anderson's script could've said "this is awesome, let's start filming!". It's a shame because I know this had a big budget, and unfortunately it would've been better served donated to some cause instead of this garbage. It's a very generous 5/10 from me, all going to the visuals and the cast, who I feel sorry for. If you want to have any enjoyment with this one, throw on your favorite up-beat album on the stereo, and play this film muted as its music video.

Great visuals, fast pace, amazing fight scenes and Mila Jovovich equals fun! No plot or anything like that of course but a great ride overall if you are looking for a monster-munch flick to watch! 7/10.

Ranger Artemis (Milla Jovovich) leads her soldiers on a mission to find a missing squad. They are hit by a mysterious lightning sandstorm and get transported to another world. It's a world of monsters and monster hunters like a nameless local hunter (Tony Jaa).

Apparently, this is based on a video game. I'm not familiar with it. Quite frankly, I'm not familiar with most newer video games but I am familiar with filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson and his wife Milla Jovovich. Expectations are low and this movie barely clears them. Jovovich is fine. She's familiar with this type of action fantasy but I really wish they didn't have a sing along. Compared with other video game inspired movies, this is fine but that's not saying much. I would like for Artemis to start with better chemistry with Tony Jaa's character. It may be better to keep T.I. for a little longer. I don't know if The Admiral is a character from the game but he really shouldn't speak English. At first, I thought that he came from our world. That would have been better or else, he should just not speak English. All in all, I have no need to watch this again. Once is more than enough.

I am not a fan of films based on video games. Most action films these days already feel like video games so why would we expect films based on video games to be any better? Because there is virtually NOTHING decent to see in a theater these days I decided to go see this with very low expectations. I know I can see just about anything at home streaming but I still would rather see a film in a movie theater.

Story? Forget that!!! Milla Jovovich stars as army Captain Artemis of a squad of soldiers who are in a desert and suddenly go into a portal. They are slaughtered by savage monsters. Jovovich lives and befriends the Hunter, played by Tony Jaa. Apparently, he is the main character in the video games but the Jovovich character is the main one here. The film has virtually no story. Very little dialogue. A staple of this type of film. Alot of CG monster creating havoc and Jovovich kicking butt. That's it.

Monster Hunter is pretty much what I thought it would be. Big, dumb and at best moderately entertaining. I expecting not to like it, but I did enough to have an average time.

Grade: C

It looked incredibly good, but it bounced around leaving extremely large gaps in the story. I've never played, or had even heard of, the video game. So I am guessing that is why I felt like the movie made no sense and was nothing more than Mila Jovovich flying around killing monsters that had killed dozens of other soldiers and warriors with ease. The action was colossally over the top, even for an action movie of its nature and style. Every single battle with Mila Jovovich against a monster had a "nick of time" scene. It was so repetitive that it became cliché before half of the movie was done. I gave it 5 stars because it looked so good and Mila Jovovich is always fun to watch, no matter how ludicrous her character is. This movie is definitely only for people who enjoy watching Mila Jovovich be a fabulously over the top action hero.