A Monster disappointment (unless you love sand) Review
Just saw Monster Hunter 2020. Do you love sand and dust? Lots and lots of it? You will love this movie! How about when there is only 1 character speaking English for over 1 hour with no understandable dialogue coming as a response from the ONLY other character on screen? This movie got that too! (subtitles be gone!) Finally, are you tired of movies and those pesky "plots" that propel a movie's story forward? Great! Because this movie literally has no explanation for what is going on or why for the first hour and a half, until Ron Perlman appears at the end and explains the entire story in 2min. Good luck figuring it out until that part!
On the bright side, this movie has lots of great action, a record-setting # of spiders on screen at one time, 1 puzzling fight where the 2 main characters try to kill each other for no reason whatsoever, and then immediately become friends after sharing a bar of Hershey's chocolate (seriously I am not making this up). This scene was actually included in the final cut of the movie. I suspect because the director thought that explaining the movie was too cumbersome by including subtitles, so he resorted to the use of the word "chocolate" as a running joke throughout the movie between the two characters, and its use as a way to explain/define/translate everything. Nothing is as hilarious when the audience is curious what liquid is in the flask the steampunk stranger with a sword is drinking, as when instead of explaining it you have the character say "chocolate" and both characters share in their laughter.
And the movie has a dragon creature that looks suspiciously like Charizard/Skyrim dragon! Expect Nintendo to get their legal team involved!
Oh did I mention that Paul Anderson made 4 decent Resident Evil movies and a Mortal Kombat movie (which uses exact same cgi lightning effects as this one) that are ALL rated higher on imdb currently than this one? By my count, this is his lowest ever rated video game adaptation.
Fun tidbit: There is a non-human character, that lets just say resembles "Puss-n-Boots" who has had too many years of drinking and painkillers, along with numerous alley brawls under his belt, and years of hard-living. This creature is delightful and truly funny and I would see a 2-hour spinoff stand-alone movie starring only him. I think others feel the same, because after the credits roll, we see this character again foreshadowing a bigger role in the inevitable derivative sequel.
Acting: C, Plot: F, Directing: B, Dialogue: F, Special Effects: A, Action/Per/Minute: A, Cinematography: B.
Overall Total: D
IMDB Current score 5.1, My score: 4/10