The Reel Review
British director Paul W.S. Anderson, who directed his wife Milla Jovovich in the long-running Resident Evil film franchise, teams up with her again for a new video game film adaptation. It is based on Capcom’s Monster Hunter video game series, which is second only to Resident Evil in its popularity.
Jovovich plays the leader of a military team that is inexplicably transported into a futuristic, sand dune covered world. In addition to lots of monsters, it is also home to a motley crew of warriors that include Muay Thai expert Tony Jaa as Hunter, a bizarre humanoid kitty that looks like it was plucked from 2019’s shockingly bad musical adaptation Cats, and Ron Perlman in a hilariously ridiculous wig. (We are not making this up.)
After the giant insectoids from 1997’s Starship Troopers lay waste to her crew of Star Trek red shirts (among them, rapper T.I.), Jovovich’s character spends the next hour killing critters and bonding with her new hunter buddy, then the rest of his aforementioned crew on a sand-surfing pirate ship. (Again, not making this up.) Eventually they battle the biggest, baddest monster of them all.
Fans of mindlessly fun, shoot and run, CGI sci-fi/fantasy will certainly get their fill in this hour and 40 minutes of story-free, acid trip WTF-ery. Both Jovovich and the impressive vistas look terrific, although Thailand-born Jaa is comically bad as the incomprehensible Hunter and the story itself is as boring as it is bonkers. Other than some highly-choreographed battle scenes, Monster Hunter is cinematic junk food made solely for young video gamers.
REEL FACTS
• Monster Hunter was filmed in Spitzkoppe, Namibia and Western Cape, South Africa.
• T.I. says that his youngest son convinced him to sign onto Monster Hunter, because he is a fan of the video games.
• Milla Jovavich and Paul W.S. Anderson gave birth to a third daughter, Osian Lark Elliot, in February 2020. Ukrainian-born Jovovich spent most of her childhood in Moscow and speaks four languages – Russian, English, French and Serbian.
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