The first trailer for Monster Hunter dropped yesterday morning and it was pretty much what I expected. There were actually two trailers that dropped, the "Official" trailer and the "International" trailer and I watched both of them to get an idea of what the movie is going to be like. First of all, I am not a fan of the video games and only played one game that came out on the WiiU and Nintendo 3DS. I have watched videos of game play of games prior to the one on the WiiU to understand So you can take my opinion on the trailer with what you will.
Based on what I saw, I think it won't be a great video game adapted movie, but as a generic monster movie I can see it being sort of fun. However, this movie is made by the same director (Paul W. S. Anderson) that made the Resident Evil movies, which were not very good movies in my opinion. I thought those movies were too generic and missing the horror aspect from the games. I just have a feeling this director gets the idea of how to play the games and yet does not really grasp or ignores the stories of what those games are really about to make up his own story.
The idea of adding an American military in the movie looks tacked on since the world that Monster Hunter takes place in is a fantasy world where various human tribes are forced to hunt these monsters in order to survive otherwise the humans would go extinct. In an interview with Empire Magazine, Anderson said that Milla Jovovich's character is an original character that he came up with just like how the game starts the player with making their own character. If that is the case, he could have done that without bringing in the military. The character creator part of the game has you build your hunter and your hunter's backstory is integrated into the game already established as a native to that game's world. Anderson could have established Jovovich's character as a hunter that is just starting out and goes on a journey to hunt a monster driving her tribe towards extinction.
She does run into Tony Jaa's character, who is an experienced hunter that trains Milla Jovovich to be a hunter if she and her squad ever want to get back home alive. You see him wielding all of these different weapons like the dual blades, a great sword, and the bow, which looks to be his most favored weapon. In the games, there are different classes for your character to choose from and you can choose these classes based on your style of how you like to play the game and your weapon is based on the class you chose. So it is good that the movie utilizes some of these weapons. It does make me wonder if the military weapons get upgraded to be like the weapons that gunners use in the games like the gunlance, the light bowgun, and the heavy bowgun.
I like how the monsters look so far. All of the monsters shown like Rathalos, Diablos, and Gore Magala look like their video game counterparts. There were other monsters in the trailer, but they were sort of unrecognizable due to how dark the scenes were. For instance, there was one scene in the trailer that showed Milla Jovovich in what looks like a bug pit and there were these bugs that look like scorpions attacking her. There was another one that showed a stampede of monsters that look like ankylosaurs. According to the Monster Hunter wiki there is a monster called Apceros, which looks similar to the ankylosaur-like monster in the trailer. So that could be what they are. You can even see a herd of Apceros drinking at a creek just to show some scenery of what this world in the movie looks like.
My last bit of criticism is that the movie is still going to theaters in December. I am going to say it right now that this movie should have been a straight to VOD movie instead. I don't have faith at all that Monster Hunter will do well due to Wonder Woman 1984 opening that same month, but even then people have recognized that watching movies on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and HBO Max are more easily accessible than going to a movie theater. So I think going straight to VOD would give this movie a better chance at success than releasing in theaters at the moment.
What are your thoughts on Monster Hunter? Do you think this could be a fun movie or do you think this movie will be a stinker? Leave a comment in the comments section. Make sure to follow me on my Facebook, Twitter, Minds, and Parler pages to stay up to date for more news, reviews, and discussions.