Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
103 minutes (12) 2020
Sony Blu-ray
[Released 20th September]
Rating: 7/10
Review by Christopher Geary
While searching for US troops missing in the desert, a team led by Captain Artemis (Milla Jovovich), are caught in an uncanny storm. Magically, they are transported to the fantasy realm of a parallel world, they discover strange ‘dinosaur’ bones, and find gigantic beasts roaming a sinister landscape. Against otherworldly shocks and unstoppable attacks their standard American weapons prove no more an effective defence than sing-along camaraderie, and soon the injured Artemis is left alone. Jovovich does her best as this feisty super-heroine, while she abandons Hollywood glamour in favour of a wholly grungy and gritty adventure of endurance for this military-action movie. Survival in this weird New World means using a bullet’s gunpowder to cauterise wounds.
Her recovery is enabled by the Hunter (Tony Jaa), a wily native with oversized weaponry. Once billed as a new Bruce Lee (see Ong Bak, 2003), Thai martial artist Jaa now tackles more diverse genre roles to become the new Jet Li. The language barrier makes dialogue in-jokes from some tough-talking clichés of typical actioners. Although always watchable, Ron Perlman joins the cast as the Admiral (whose role is ‘Mr Exposition’), and he regales us with tales of a fallen ancient civilisation, while his old galleon sails blithely over sandy seas. This trio join forces for the dragon-slaying job that builds up to an effects-laden climax, just before Artemis falls through a mysterious vortex and returns home, but her big problems with monsters are only just beginning.
Based on a videogame, this scenario offers a witty fusion of Toho’s varied kaiju franchise and sci-fi movies such as Pitch Black (2000), merged with Enemy Mine (1985). Despite a lack of SF world-building, like in the Alien, Dune, and Starship Troopers franchises, or the earthbound series of Tremors and Jurassic Park), this hyper-dramatic form of storytelling hardly needs any rationalist explanations for its generic mega-fauna. Not when the mad rush of inexplicable events and savage confrontations deliver thrillingly vast spectacle to delight fans of Doyle’s Lost World romanticism, and/ or Burroughs’ Barsoom - as epitomised by Disney’s under-rated John Carter (2012).
Monster Hunter displays ravenous critters of all sorts. None of them are pleasant in any way, even if they’re relatively harmless herbivores. Further plot-twists suggest a sequel, or two, might eventually appear, while an (inevitable?) mid-credits teaser sequence hints at such developments. Undoubtedly, there are quirky details and odd elements here that only game-players are very likely to appreciate, but this impressive cinematic adaptation delivers more than enough superheroic thrills, and extraordinary visual effects, to please discerning fans or demanding viewers of pulp sci-fi styled fantasy.
