Monster Hunter (2020)

Directed by: Paul WS Anderson | 104 minutes | action, adventure | Actors: Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman, TI, Diego Boneta, Meagan Good, Josh Helman, Jin Au-Yeung, Hirona Yamazaki, Jannik Schümann, Nanda Costa, Nic Rasenti, Clyde Berning, Paul Hampshire, Schelaine Bennett, Bart Fouche , Pope Jerrod, Aaron Beelner

Paul WS Anderson is either a lazy person or an inveterate romantic. This director casts his own wife in the lead role in almost every film. Milla Jovovich can squeeze her hands with such a man (and vice versa too, because my wife does perfectly what she is cast for). This couple is fond of video games and that explains the twisted movies that are based on computer games. After filming the ‘Resident Evil’ horror games, the couple decided to tap into a new franchise. Once again, a game from the stable of Capcom (a Japanese publisher of video games) has been chosen. The popular ‘Monster Hunter’ is now next. And just like ‘Resident Evil’, this film has little to do with the Japanese source material.

In ‘Monster Hunter’ Jovovich plays Lieutenant Artemis. This super soldier ends up with her team in a dimension full of monsters. To survive, she must join forces with a mysterious man (Tony Jaa). This guy knows how to take out the strange creatures.

The movie title already indicates exactly what you can expect: people are chasing monsters. The fact that these unusual creatures come from roaring PCs doesn’t make them very convincing. CGI is rapidly aging and it shows. ‘Monster Hunter’ doesn’t look bad, but it’s obvious that the cast is acting with invisible computer models. In Jaa’s case, that’s a real shame. This martial arts specialist again gets far too little to do in a Western film, so his presence adds little. This martial arts master deserves a movie where he can show his skills. Anyone who saw him in ‘Ong-Bak’ knows what he has to offer and that is not a small amount.

Anderson is a craftsman and does what he was hired to do. Unfortunately, he lacks a creative vision and enthusiasm. ‘Monster Hunter’ ticks off all the requirements for the genre (action, touch of humor, imaginative monsters), but especially excels in anonymity. You’ve seen this film before, but with a better cast, better special effects and more expressiveness. ‘Monster Hunter’ is not a disastrous video game adaptation, but a boring one.