Bookshelf Battle

Monster Hunter? More like Poop Hunter, because this movie stinks!

BQB here with a review of this turdburger with extra butt fries.

I don’t generally write bad reviews. I figure however bad a movie is, at least those people made a movie, and that’s more than I ever did.

But sometimes a movie just seems like such a waste of time, money and resources that it shouldn’t have happened – a big waste for all involved, from the people who made it all the way down to the schmucks like me who were convinced by the awesome trailer to waste 5.99 of my money and 2 hours of my life that I’ll never get back on this thing.

At the outset, it’s a video game based movie, so that in and of itself should have been an early warning. Still, there’s a handful of VG movies that have lived up to their digital counterparts. I’ve never played the Monster Hunter game so I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it.

The first half is a lot of filler. Lt. Artemis (Mila Jovavich) is combing the desert in our world with her loyal unit. Somehow, they accidentally travel with a warp that lands them in a world overrun by monsters. If there’s an explanation as to why this world is overrun by monsters, I missed it, maybe because it was never given or maybe after ten minutes I said, “Ugh this movie sucks” and just left it on in the background while I checked my email, cleaned my house, took a crap, made tacos etc. Not gonna lie. I had to spread this movie out in 10 to 20 minute bits over two days because it was too mind numbing to get through in one sitting.

Sidenote – why are we humans so pre-programmed to not cut our losses when what we thought was a good idea turns out to be a bad one? We stay in bad marriages for life because holy crap, we paid how much money for that wedding reception and we eat crappy food because hey, it’s in front of us and we paid the bill, so…

Back to the review. To the film’s credit, the second half is a special effects bonanza and if you want my advice, you might just want to fast forward through the first half, then check out all the pretty colors at the end. If they’d just put a little more of this in the beginning, it might not have been a yawnfest. I think the producers probably assumed this would be released in theaters (it was if you were willing to brave the Covid) and I admit, some of the human vs. monster scenes at the end would have been cool to watch on the big screen, though whether it would be worth it to go out to the theater and sit there for an hour before something interesting happens, I don’t know.

Ron Perlman’s in it. He gets top billing though he’s barely in it, and frankly if he hadn’t been in it, it wouldn’t have changed the film that much. He gives a brief, fleeting explanation of how Artemis ended up in the world. I wasn’t making tacos during this part so I heard it.

Character development and backstory are lacking. I don’t know much about Artemis, who she is, what she’s been through, so it’s hard to connect with her. There are some mildly humorous scenes when she works through a language barrier to join sides with a monster hunter from this strange new world. (Tony Jaa)

STATUS: Not shelf-worthy. Sad part is, it builds up at the end like they’re going to make a second one and I can’t imagine their being enough fanfare to warrant a second one. If they wanted to erase this one and apologize for making it, refund everyone’s money and just pretend like it never happened, that would be more warranted. Sucks, because I do like Mila but Hollywood hasn’t found a good fit for her since her 5th Element days (with the possible exception of Ultraviolet.)

You might want to wait until it streams for free and then stream it ahead to the last half just to watch the special effects. Otherwise, let this one go and thank me for taking the hit for you.