30
Monster Hunter runs just over an hour and a half but feels about twice that long thanks to its listless, meandering plot devoid of a central focus or any meaningful world-building.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Barry Hertz
Monster Hunter is all sorts of super-dumb fun. And though its middle section lags – there are only so many training montages audiences can handle – Anderson and his wife Jovovich prove that their long-running Resident Evil franchise was no fluke: this is a couple who know how to take the flimsiest of video games and turn them into self-knowing slices of cinematic ridiculousness.
50
Entertainment Weekly by Christian Holub
Plot doesn't really matter, there's not much character development to speak of, but there is a lot of fighting against an endless swarm of enemies.
16
Series fans will feel cheated by such a chintzy and incurious take on something they love, while the rest of us will be left wondering how the source material earned itself any fans in the first place.
67
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
There’s a couple badass heroes with humongous swords, a few big scaly monstrosities, and frequently not much else. The minimalism is consistent with Anderson’s career-long devotion to delivering caloric content with an unlikely combo of classical unities and pounding, insta-dated electronic beats. The movie’s called Monster Hunter—what more could it reasonably need?
40
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
A few flashes of amused chemistry between the two actors represent all the human interest in this unimaginative sci-fi actioner, but that doesn't mean the pic's relentless focus on giant-monster battles won't please the director's fans.
30
Los Angeles Times by Noel Murray
For roughly two-thirds of its running time, the big-screen video game adaptation Monster Hunter feels like an attempt to answer a question no one has asked: What would the “Jurassic Park” movies be like if they were drained of all sense of wonder? The film rallies toward the end with a few genuinely spectacular images, but even its best scenes fail to justify a tedious first hour.
50
Paul W.S. Anderson has simply combined the established iconography of the popular Capcom game franchise with prefab movie moments.
60
Very little of Monster Hunter makes sense, but it’s visually interesting at least and not un-fun to stream at home with a friend, asking questions and cracking jokes along the way.
35
On its own terms, Monster Hunter might work as silly, frenetic entertainment, if you don’t look too close or think too hard. But if looking and thinking are on your agenda, you might also leave it with a real headache.