Even if you haven’t played Monster Hunter, you’re probably aware of the general gist of the game. Players explore a fantasy world full of charming and deadly magical beasts. Simple.
This is a premise nobody seems to have passed on to Paul W.S. Anderson, the director behind the upcoming live action Monster Hunter movie which, if a new set image is to be believed – looks nothing like you’d expect (or want) such a movie to look like.
As you might have heard by now, Anderson’s plans for the Monster Hunter movie involve some kind of forced connection to the real world, because clearly he’s never watched the Super Mario Bros movie.
The movie is in fact about a UN military team that ends up in another dimension full of monsters, because of course it is. Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich meets a hunter, played by Tony Jaa, and they join forces as she learns what it means to be a hunter of monsters. Probably.
Here’s how Anderson explained it to Deadline a few years back, anyway:
An ordinary man in a dead end job discovers that he is actually the descendant of an ancient hero. He must travel to a mystical world to train to become a Monster Hunter, before the mythical creatures from that world destroy ours.
This thrilling take on Capcom’s popular – and brilliant outlandish – fantasy video game franchise is sure to divide fans, and a recent on set image shared by Jovovich further underscores that yes, this movie will not be like the Monster Hunter you know and love.
Milla has been sharing plenty of set photos, most of them involving modern military weapons, although purists will be glad to know there is at least one image of her using a Slinger – so I guess we can assume that Jovovich and her crew will have to learn to ditch their guns and use traditional Monster Hunter weaponry.
If that’s the case, one has to wonder what the point of involving a “real world” component to the film even is. I’m not one to judge too hard until I’ve seen the film though, so I just have to trust Anderson has a plan for his Monster Hunter movies, just like he had a plan for those Resident Evil movies…
Shit.
Whenever Monster Hunter releases, Jovovich will be joined by Ron Perlman and T.I Harris. As long as they get the monsters right, I don’t care what else they do to it, to be honest.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.