It appears that this movie is either quite hated or quite liked. I guess it is not that surprising though given that it is based on a video game with a very strong following so if the movie is deviating from canon, and I understand that it does, it will not matter how good or bad a movie is.

Well, I have never played the game so I am not burdened with Monster Hunter canon so I have to say that I very much liked this movie. It does not really hurt that I quite like Milla Jovovich as well of course. Ron Perlman is also a favourite of mine and I really wish that he would have been in more of the movie. As it was he was only present briefly at the beginning and then a little bit at the end.

Anyway, this is a fantasy, action movie of my liking. Clash of cultures, huge monsters and lots and lots of shooting, slicing, kicking and stabbing action. The story is rather simple but not really bad at all. The ships navigating the sand was a bit weird and those huge weapons they were dragging around a bit silly but then those are part of the canon.

At first I got a bit annoyed by Artemis and Hunter starting to fight each other and thought, oh no, not another one of those silly, illogical stories again, but that sorted itself out rather quickly. And the bait jokes were rather funny actually.

The CGI and the monsters were great, as far as I am concerned. When I first saw the diablos I thought that they had kind of copied the sandworms from Dune but when they, or it rather since we only got to see one actually emerge, it was quite different.

The part where Artemis is thrown back to Earth and followed by the big fire breathing beastie is probably not liked at all by the fans of the video games since it is probably not very canon but I definitely liked it. I whish they would have done a bit more surprise, what the f… and mayhem scenes there actually.

The ending didn’t really leave that much of a conclusion but, unlike what some people seems to feel, I didn’t think it was a bad ending. It certainly prepared the field for a sequel and I for one really hope one will come.