Good News: ‘Monster Hunter’ Has Both Monsters And Hunters
If you like video game adaptations, then I have a movie for you.…
A movie based on a video game will win the Academy Award for Best Picture one day but not anytime soon. Until then, there’s Monster Hunter, now on-demand, a new action-fantasy based on a video game that delivers on the promise made in the title: There are monsters and hunters and, as an added bonus, non-stop CGI mayhem. If this appeals to you, then absolutely check it out. Otherwise, buyer beware.
I like monsters. I think monster movies are an underrated genre, frankly. If Monster Hunter works, and I’m not certain it always works, it's because of the main two hunters, Milla Jovovich and Tony Jaa. Jovovich is a veteran action movie star, having killed countless post-apocalyptic zombies over the course of six Resident Evil movies, the most successful movie franchise based on a video game in history.
Her career gets no respect, but she has been a gift to b-blockbusters for decades and earned cinematic immortality for her surprisingly vulnerable and also surprisingly weird performance in Luc Besson’s lunatic sci-fi classic The Fifth Element. She also has plenty of real screen chemistry with Tony Jaa, a Thai-born martial artist, and actor whose debut in 2003’s Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior made…
