'Monster Hunter' Is a Massive Bummer of a Hollywood Isekai

Monster Hunter is a science fantasy action film that’s loosely based on Capcom video game of the same name.  It follows a team of soldiers, led by Captain Natalie Artemis (Milla Jovovich), that is sent to search for another team of soldiers that suddenly disappeared into thin air.  Upon arriving at the last known place where the missing soldiers had been, Capt. Artemis’ team is caught in a mysterious storm that quickly drop out of nowhere.  Afterward, they discover that the storm took them to another world – the same fate as the previously missing soldiers, whom they discovered suffered grisly deaths.  For this new world they find themselves in are actually inhabited by many formidable and aggressive monsters.  In order to survive in this harsh and deadly world, Capt. Artemis and his troops must rely on their training, weaponry, and teamwork, although it looks like they won’t be enough to fight these unfamiliar enemies.

After watching its trailer, I somewhat began to look forward to watching it.  Now, I didn’t expect that it would be good.  With Paul W. S. Anderson, the man behind those mostly awful Resident Evil movies, writing and directing it, it didn’t inspire much confidence.  However, I was intrigued of the isekai aspect of its premise.

When I wrote my review for Gate: Thus the Japanese Self-Defense Force Fought There, I mentioned how its spin on isekai would make for an interesting premise for a Hollywood movie.  Surely, how awesome would it be to see a modern military coming to a high fantasy world and employing modern tactics, arms, and tech when they square off against beings and creatures inherent to such world!  After watching that trailer, it seemed to me that Monster Hunter was touching on such concept.  And I didn’t really care if it would have a dumb script, and would just all be pure mindless action.  As long as something similar to Gate was decently explored, I would have been happy with it.

Unfortunately, not only did Monster Hunter underwhelm as a basic popcorn flick, it didn’t even satisfy my wish to see some “modern military vs. fantasy creatures” storyline.  It’s actually not that type of movie.  The advantage of modern warfare doesn’t really manifest in an impressive way.  In fact, with the exception of Capt. Artemis, all of the soldiers get wiped out in the first act.  At the half way point, Artemis is basically employing the weapons and techniques of that world.  That means there’s no real reason why the plot has to involve modern soldiers going to another world.

The original game actually doesn’t have any isekai BS (actually, I didn’t know that this movie was a movie adaptation of a game.  It was only after I watched it that I learned this.  Apparently, Monster Hunter is Capcom’s second best-selling game series.  The first?  Resident Evil. Lol.  It’s crazy that Capcom allowed Paul W. S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich to make disastrous movie adaptations of their two biggest franchises).  It’s just straight up fantasy adventure in which a Hunter fights monsters.  And that’s what the movie should have just been in the first place, since the element of isekai’d modern soldiers didn’t add anything meaningful to the plot at all.  Worse of all, it gave me false expectations.

To be fair, Monster Hunter has some nice action sequences here and there, and a couple of the monsters are kinda cool looking.  Overall though, this movie sucks.