Our movie today is available thru several streaming services, but as it is day fifteen and
counting since our Comcast service line was cut (thank you Chester River Landscape) we viewed
today’s selection thru Redbox.
Leading the cast is Mila Jovovich, as Army Ranger Lt. Natalie Artemis who is leading a United
Nations joint security team searching for a missing team. Whenever I see Jovovich in a movie, it
immediately brings me to her portrayal of Alice, in the Resident Evil series. A series that would
never win any major award but was always entertaining.
The movie opens with a scene from “a different world” where an ancient sailing ship is sailing
thru the desert sand and comes under attack from giant creatures that live under the sand
(think Tremors, but bigger and uglier). The unimpressive scenes are thankfully short, and we
move onto present day and Artemis and crew searching the same desert. Suddenly, a massive
storm builds behind the crew who tries to outrun it but is overcome and tossed violently
around and SHAZAAM the storm is gone and its blue skies. First complaint, the slow-motion
sequence of the jeeps/truck being tossed around by the storm, bodies floating made airborne
by the collision, so overdone and tiresome.
After this tussle with the mysterious storm, they cannot contact anyone on their radios, and the
landscape around them has changed but they continue their search and find the burned out
remains of the team they were searching for. But this isn’t the normal kind of burned bodies,
and some of the crew starts to freak out. Artemis barks “We are Army, we fight, and we
survive” and off they go heading back to their headquarters, even though their compass and
GPS doesn’t work, and it doesn’t even look like the same desert. This is the point they
personally are introduced to the unground sand monster.
“Monster Hunter’ is based on a video game series which after the first fifteen minutes, you ask
yourself, am I supposed to be playing along somehow? Should I have received some sort of
handheld game device with the DVD rental, because Artemis and company are wiped out
ridiculously easy. Where does this movie go from here everyone is dead??!!
But then Artemis is alive, what? How? Oh, right it’s based on a video game silly me. Then her
second in command is temporary alive, but not now he’s not.
Artemis eventually finds a survivor of the ancient sailing ship that opened the movie, and soon
our movie becomes Matrix like karate chop fest, that goes on for too long. Second complaint,
why are they fighting each other, why did she dump their only source of water? And presto
change they are best buds, such a cliché
Third complaint, visually this is a very uninspiring beige movie. Yes, I know we are in a desert,
but so was Lawrence of Arabia.
Fourth complaint, this movie was released in 2020, CGI is not new. These monsters are the
best they could create? When a movie has the word monster in it, you must budget in the
development of a kick ass monster.
Fifth complaint (if you make it thru the first hour) what almost put me over the edge is the Cat
Cook. Yes, I typed that correctly……I know we are supposed to be in a different reality/world,
but OMG who came up with this crap??? And don’t get me started on the ending.
“Monster Hunter” is rated D-, tying with my worse rated movie the horrendous “Skyscraper”
(shame on you Rock you should have known better).
Don’t waste a coupon code on this movie, if you pay for a streaming service and see this movie,
quickly click away.
I’m not even going to recommend a beverage, stay sober and avoid this mess.
