MONSTER HUNTER

Frankly, there is not a lot to say about the film. It has no subtext, the acting is in service of the action not really the characters, and the action is from Paul W,S. Anderson, who has been making this kind of movie for a long time so he knows his way around this stuff. The only hook I have for potential fans is my own nostalgia for movies like this and I will get into that in a moment.

The story does not spend anytime explaining what is going on. It drops us into a mission, transports us to another dimension and starts throwing monsters at us pretty damn quickly. No one will be surprised that Milla Jovovitch's character, Captain Artemis, ends up as the one real survivor of the opening half hour. The other characters are so thinly drawn that you can see it coming immediately. What does work in the movie is a long sequence where she combats and collaborates with a true resident of this world, Tony Jaa, a martial arts movie star that you will recognize if you like those kinds of films. Their initial interactions are full of hand to hand combat and the sort of action work you would find in Anderson's other movies.

The process by which the two become allied is reminiscent of a number of other films, the first that come to mind is "Enemy Mine". My nostalgia radar was going off very early, thinking of one of my favorite childhood movies "The Mysterious Island" from 1961, but also some cheesy 1970s films starring Doug McClure, "At the Earth's Core" and  "The Land That Time Forgot".  Basically a group of outsiders gets plopped down in an alien environment and gets attacked by monsters. Edgar Rice Burroughs should have received a story credit on this movie.

"Monster Hunter" is a brisk time waster that will go down well on a rainy Saturday afternoon, but it is not especially good. The design of the monsters is fun and a little confounding. Since this review is mostly name dropping of other films, I will throw in "Starship Troopers". When you see the night crawling nest of creatures after Artemis and the Hunter, you will understand why that reference is relevant.   I'm not sure why a sailing ship crossing a desert works visually, but in the opening sequence it does, inspite of the fact that it is confusing. When you notice that the Captain of the ship is played by Ron Pearlman, yo will not at all be surprised that those images come back later in the film.

For me, the main reason to see this is that it is playing exclusively in theaters now, and dammit, I am on a personal crusade to try and sustain movie theaters until things get back to something more normal. If we don't try, they will all give up and we will be left alone in our living rooms. That is a monster that I am hunting.