Brief Thoughts On Monster Hunter: The Movie

Watched Monster Hunter earlier today with no expectation other than that I was going to see some decent monster action. I’ve always been a fan of monster movies since I saw my first Godzilla movie in the 80s. I think several have been done right, and while I know Monster Hunter is based off of a video game, I think it suffered from some basic action movie flaws that I find less and less forgivable from these types of films as I age. I should warn you now that there are spoilers contained in this review.

What Was Wrong

1. Milla’s character was impaled by a giant scorpion and she was fine the rest of the movie. Sure, she had a few aches and pains, the type of thing you feel when you’re stiff in the morning, apparently, but I don’t care how tough a character is, hers, even in peak human physical condition would have been done after that first impale, especially since she was poisoned.
2. Somehow this same venom she got didn’t affect her the same way as the other guys in her troop. She got a little sleepy, yes, but nothing else, no long term affects. The venom didn’t need to be taken out of her at all. When the Hunter rescued her she still had a ton of fight in her, and he never attended to any of her wounds. I simply do not understand why movies incur so many injuries on the main character and then ignore them. The sheer physical action Milla’s character went through alone would be enough to keep her stiff and powerless for a long time.
3. Other stupid injuries miraculously healed: her foot/ankle that she cauterized with gunpowder. It was also ridiculous how easily she could get a spark to ignite it with. She climbed a ridiculously high and difficult mountain right after.
4. Were the scorpions vampires? They couldn’t go out in the sun, even for a little bit? It’s not like the sun was hot enough to do anything to Milla, so a scorpion couldn’t go out, snag her, then crawl with her back into the shade where it might be 10 degrees cooler?
5. Why did the scorpions try to capture and string up the survivors when they could eat them immediately? Was it to create babies out of them? That seemed a bit weird especially since one of the big ones had no problem killing the one dude who was the host for a bunch of the babies. Why not kill and then infect? Anyway, there were a lot of Alien undertones in the bug scenes, but it made no sense that Milla survived.
6. How many times was Milla bouncing around in a tumbling steel vehicle?
7. How many times did she bounce off of a steel structure?
8. How did she survive a helicopter crash impact?
9. The same old trope of some gigantic, fast moving monster is somehow always never close enough to eat/hit/kill a slow moving human target. And the few times they are, somehow the human miraculously escapes or is only thrown instead of mashed into the ground (unless they are a union stunt actor).
10. Monsters need to be nerfed. Stop making them invulnerable to bullets. If you can stab a monster with a knife or blade, then think of the bullet as a really tiny blade with a lot more force behind it. It didn’t seem like the bullets were getting into the monsters and sticking in their thick hides, so it would be cooler to see fights with the monsters where the humans tried to fight intelligently by focusing on weak points, going for the eyes, and other things to balance the fight a little bit.
11. Does anyone making these movies research how animals behave?
12. Without expendable stuntmen, these movies would be very boring.
13. The music set the tone of an actiony, less-serious movie. It could have been slower paced and darker, but I guess they wanted to keep it as PG-13. Maybe kids were the only audience they were going for.

What Went Right

1. The costumes, the set, the special effects (especially when cutting a monster open, using its venom) were all very good.
2. The basic plot was intriguing with a stargate-type tower of Saruman from an ancient civilization bridging the two worlds. Interesting stuff can be made from that foundation.
3. Milla and Tony Jaa sold their characters as best as possible, Tony was perfect as the Hunter.
4. The monsters were powerful and evil looking. They were true threats and forces to be reckoned with.

Last Thoughts

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I tend to dislike the pacing of modern movies. It’s almost as if I am not expected to have any patience and need to be hooked with every scene. I’m okay with things taking time, and I’m a big fan of the slow-burn movie and TV show, so long as there is a pay off. I was really happy to watch this movie, so don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good mind candy movie here and there, but I think so many of our action movies can benefit from how Japanese anime portrays monsters and how their characters deal with them.