Monster Hunter

THE GIST: Lt. Artemis is leading her Rangers on a rescue operation when a sudden and violent storm seems to transport them to what looks like a different world. Attacked by huge and terrifying monsters, they will have to fight for their lives.

Monster Hunter is definitely one of the worst film adaptations of a successful video game I've ever watched.

I never played the game, and wasn't aware of its origin going in, and that's strike number one: when you make a film adaptation, you should strive to make the film enjoyable for the uninitiated as well as the game's fans, so that everyone walks away satisfied (examples such as Wreck-It Ralph or Tomb Raider come to mind).

There's virtually zero character development for even the top three most important ones, and that's strike number two: if we don't know the characters, we can't empathize with them and therefore won't care what happens to them.

Strike number three is the complete lack of an ending that brings the film to a reasonable close. I can understand the need to build in a sequel (we see that all the time nowadays), but that's done via either a strong cliffhanger or extra scenes in the end credits. Here, we don't get a feasible ending to the story we just watched; the final fight clearly is meant to resume in the sequel, which hopefully will never get greenlit given how poorly this one was developed. I certainly won't be sitting through it if it ever gets made.

Certainly, Milla Jovovich is very entertaining and once again proves her credentials as an action star. The visual effects also are impressive, which is a minimum in a movie such as this.

THE BOTTOM LINE: If you know and love the game you might give this a try, but anyone else would be better off watching a painting hanging on their walls for two hours.

Grade: 2.5