Monster Hunter

A real washout, unfortunately not in a good way. From the narrative techniques, to the portrayal of the characters, to the technical execution, it's average at best, in objective terms more like below average. Milla Jovovich is likewise bland and flat in her performance like in Resident Evil; here, unfortunately, it's a lot of severed limbs worse. I felt a slight glimmer of hope at the beginning, when it started out as a military survival film (though the dialogue awfully grated on the ears), but after the transition into the "fantasy world" there wasn't really much to praise about it. That is to say, nothing at all. [30%] (08/20/2022)

Quite entertaining hogwash with a nicely OTT finale. The monsters look really great, the action is easy to follow and is a dream come true for little fans of fantasy who love dragons and dinosaurs. Anderson is a B-movie director to a T and he gets great joy out of making this sort of thing with Mila. It’s interesting to see how they steal things from the "Dark Tower" saga by Stephen King (the parallel worlds, and the Tower that unites them; come on, now - give it a rest!). It’s dumb as anything, Ron Perlman has awful hair, the relationship between the heroine and Tony Jaa is really shaky, but it’s bearable.  It isn’t so much about people anyhow. (02/28/2021)

Despite Ron Perlman's hairstyle and Paul W.S. Anderson's reputation, it’s not bad! I believed in Milla Jovovich more than when she is among zombies, the action scenes were great, I have nothing to complain about in terms of the special effects, and I was pleasantly surprised by the number of monsters. The biggest weakness of the film, however, is that it was obviously created mainly so that another part could be made, because a lot of things would remain unresolved, and although I enjoyed the desert-like, literally horrible stay, in the end I just had to ask: What was it all for? I wouldn't think I'd write this after a Resident Evil mess, but this time I will - I'd quite like Anderson to make a sequel. (07/02/2021)

Ron Perlman’s hairstyle and make-up in the opening scene give us a hint of what’s to come. And then everything in the film only gets better. Monster Hunter is a videogame-based ultra-farce with an utterly primitive plot, but it’s even more of an admittedly guilty pleasure that’s just straight-up entertaining. The explicitly dry humour made me laugh more than I do with most forced comedies. And with visual effects that only a few top-tier Hollywood productions can boast (Godzilla vs. Kong). Otherwise, Paul W.S. obviously steals from everywhere, from Aliens to Dune (or Transformers or Star Wars) to The Lord of the Rings, sometimes so blatantly (a group of soldiers walking across a stone bridge to a hellish mountain covered in burning lava) that it’s rather more a declaration of love for those films than a case of creative helplessness. Conversely, the monsters themselves are magnificent and the visual dynamics of the action are highly polished. And there is an abundance of that here. One slaughter after another. Plus nice locations. Despite that, take my third star with a grain of salt, because I’m giving it for the gut-punching sound. My downstairs neighbour is on vacation, so I’m running Atmos in the living room with an unmuffled subwoofer. And with this movie, it was almost an orgasmic experience. (02/21/2021)

The biggest gadgeteer of genre cinema has again come up with a delightfully childish and ostentatiously formalistic flick. Anderson’s films can evoke the innocent amusement and wonder that we experienced in childhood when we first encountered genre spectacle. However, that does not mean that he works with nostalgia. On the contrary, his work – in terms of overall style and the formalistic treatment of individual sequences and shots – reaches a level of avant-garde that goes beyond most conventionally staid Hollywood blockbusters. Whereas those are childishly immature in their flattery of fans, would-be seriousness and false depth, Anderson remains idiosyncratically childlike and playful. Grouches will always look condescendingly down their noses at his films, but they will also never see the true delight in his movies. Monster Hunter is a typically pure action fantasy in Anderson’s style, where straightforwardness, spectacle and unrealism become superlatives. As is typical of the master, part of the joy is how Anderson works with video-game elements and finds formalistic and narrative equivalents for them, and how Mila Jovovich perfectly personifies the ethos of his films. In comparison with his previous projects, we also see gratifying progress in the merging of physical and digital attractions, which confirms the fact that Anderson reflects contemporary trends while also forging his own path in the cinema of spectacle. (10/25/2021)