Monster Hunter [Blu-ray]

Excellent

Worth watching. Not bad

Not a bad movie could have been better but not bad

This movie is based on the Monster Hunter series of games. The monsters are represented incredibly well. The "oh god, my puny earth weapons do nothing to these things" moments are also fantastic.The Hunters? Eh.... they didn't quite get them right. In the movie, the Hunters are more like Ninjas with large weapons than what they actually are. In the games, the Hunters (i.e. NOT Mila's character) are descendants of people who had their genetics weaponized. The ancestors in question were designed to be incredibly strong, fast, and resilient.Think of the Custodes from Warhammer 40k. That's a good comparison. The reason why they were designed this way was because the Ancients (the builders of the tower in the movie) were at war with Elder Dragons. No, not Rathalos or Diablos. I'm talking about the big boys like Teostra, Lunastra, Gore Magala, Nergigante, Zorah Magdaros (who is literally a sentient volcano), etc. These big boys/big girls are sentient just as we are.Why were the Ancients at war with them? Well. Remember that tower? Yeah, there were a lot of those. And they were all made with Elder Dragon bones. Pretty sure you'd be mad at people for slaughtering your kin and turning their bones into skyscrapers.With all of that in mind, the Hunters HAD to be Superman without the laser beams and x-ray vision.However the Hunters that -we-, the players/watchers, are familiar with had their strength diluted due to breeding with non-Hunters, but they're still on-par with an un-armored Spartan from Halo...... at their absolute weakest. For reference, a Spartan wearing no armor is still perfectly capable of literally turning your spine to powder in seconds.The fight scene between the Hunter and Mila's character should have been over before it even started. Sure, he wasn't trying to end her. But on the same hand, he should have had her pinned on the ground pretty easily.Note: The strength of Hunters varies wildly by this point in the game's/movie's timeline due to the dilution. Some are WAY stronger than others........ for instance...In the games, the Admiral (who is in the movie portrayed by Ron Chinman) is capable of tearing chunks of the earth out from underneath him and using it as a tower shield, with his bare hands. He also doesn't even use weapons. He just fist fights every monster he comes across. The only one that upsets him is Rajang.... but that's okay, I get it. Rajang cheats.In the movie, the most the Admiral does is swing a Switch Axe around and (SOMEHOW) performs a Charge Blade's attack with it. Repeatedly. He must have downloaded some cheat-weapon mods.....Anyway. That's enough nitpicking.TL;DR - Decent movie, even if it's a little slow compared to what you would actually expect from something related to Monster Hunter. Also is a mixed-bag when it comes to game vs. movie portrayals.

I enjoyed it despite the plot holes and inaccurate usage of firearms.

Great movie

I bought this disk a while ago despite all the horrible reviews for everything from the release date to the disc not playing on a UK DVD player. That's not the point of this review - I don't care about any of those issues. I was NOT expecting The Godfather or Citizen Kane. I'm not a gamer, I don't know anything about that side of this movie - this is purely an audio review although the 4K on a high end Sony 4K TV is excellent.I will not do a plot summary or review, all that data is already online. What's not emphasized in 99% of the reviews is the loud and abusive yet superbly produced sound track that backs this otherwise very mediocre "kill the monsters and admire Milla's jaw line" flick. If you have the right audio/visual gear, the sound track backing this movie is the REAL monster.The pandemic has allowed me to revisit the best ATMOS and Dolby audio flicks on the market - Black Hawk Down, Ready Player One, Baby Driver, Mad Max: Road Fury, Gravity and the Lord of the Rings trilogy to name a few. I judged the audio bang on the same system and Gravity is the only of those DVD's that is remotely close to the finely tuned audio blast power of this DVD.The separation, clarity, wizard-like ATMOS effects, subwoofer punch and overall audio depth had me scrambling to get my system adjusted - I felt like a rookie sound board operator at a Chili Peppers concert. Once I got the audio dialed in, this flick was very enjoyable despite the plodding GPS like plot, horrible acting, predictable ending and way too many Milla versus the little dude fights early on in the flick. I did enjoy Milla - it's really hard to not like those features.5 stars for the audio, 5 stars for the video, 0 stars for the plot/acting. 5 stars for Milla's features and 0 stars for Ron Perlman's hairdo which equals my overall 4 star rating. I was not a math major.Bottom line is that if you are a home theater audio freak with good gear (a $300 sound bar does not count) and want to blow out your windows with great clarity, buy the 4K version of this flick. I'm not responsible for your neighbor noise complaints, the cops showing up at your door or any equipment damage. Proceed at your own risk. Hope that helps!