Monster Hunter
SONYFive years on from the abhorrently crafted final instalment in his largely successful video-game to film franchise, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, director Paul W. S. Anderson returns to the director's chair with on-screen muse and wife Milla Jovich in yet another video game adaption of Monster Hunter. It is a largely unforgettable and hollow venture that cant muster both the courage and concept to push past a first act.
First and foremost, Anderson has learned nothing from his last venture behind the camera. Monster Hunter is a rapidly paced and incoherently edited mess. Reteaming with editor Doobie White has done little to orchestrate a finer tuned and more palatable watch with Monster Hunter. This continuous and visually abrasive picture fails to find any form of momentum to detail a story.
In its wake of poor storytelling and editing leaves very little to find sound footing. Jovich, an undoubtable action heroine story, is mustering up as much charisma and interest into the material at hand as possible. A factor of which remembering her characters name becomes the strongest notion of reflection. Still, her character composition is fragile and hollow at best. Jovich's comedy in this role is surprisingly strong; however, writer/director Anderson fails to deliver any notion of acting prowess. That entry is left to action star Tony Jaa, a forgotten man with the pedantic editing style of White, who is pushed aside and flounder with a camera that can never focus on the actor's ability and talents.
Further problematic within Anderson's writing capability is that his film can never push and move out of first gear. It is a film that consistently feels as if it must stay in its first act for no reason other than that it has nothing much to progress. With the little depth on offer, aside from fragments of detail, the main pull is the story of survival between Jovich and Jaa. However, this pull lasts up to seventy minutes of the films run time. A factor that ultimately bores and sours the viewer's enthusiasm and interest.
Even when the film finally proceeds into second gear, all but with twenty minutes left, the feature is all but lost in direction. Making up lost time is most certainly an element on offer here. Yet, the description of scattershot comes to mind, for what proceeds are lifeless CGI fight sequences that arrive thick and fast to cover up the cracks of the story. Further made more problematic is the dire need to add complexity and plot to the overall barron narrative. An eye-roll in response indeed, but only to be intensified by a mid-credit stinger with the obligatory sequel bait set-up further extends such a mess of which Monster Hunter is.
It would seem that after a four-year break, Anderson is making the same mistakes that caused his creativity to steer off a cliff. The video game adaption relationship between the director and audience interest seems unconvincing. It would seem that Anderson's only hope to reinvigorate his career would be to go back to his roots and build upon the foundations of Event Horizon in body and/or sci-fi horror as Monster Hunter stands to be a consecutive failure in creativity and craftsmanship.
