Monster Hunter (2020 Film)

Paul Anderson.  If you've seen the Mortal Combat movie, or the resident evil ones...then you know who he is.  Buckle up kids, because he made a live action Monster Hunter film!

Flaming swords and triceratops monsters, what more could you ask for?  Plot and common sense? nah.

For those of you who don't know who he is, he's a director who makes really bad movies, mostly based off existing material, though not exclusively video game movies.  As someone who has seen his Three Musketeers film, I can safely say that it has little to do with the books, despite never reading them.  But the film has steampunk airships.  I'll let that sink in.

Despite the huge flaws of his films, I enjoy them, if only because they're so over the top and take themselves too seriously.  Basically, they're so bad they're good, in my opinion.  So when I heard a monster hunter film was in development by Paul Anderson, I was overjoyed.  I was even more overjoyed when I heard the basic plot.

For those of you who never played Monster Hunter, it takes place in another world where giant monsters roam and Hunters, well, hunt them to keep people safe but mainly to turn the monsters into cool looking armor.  The locations, monsters, and characters change throughout the series, and there isn't really a overarching theme except for the obvious one of hunting giant monsters.  The plots in Monster Hunter are also simple, to the point that really it boils down to 'monster bad and threatening village, you kill!' and that's it.  So how could they fuck up a plot of the movie?

I'll tell you how; by having the film take place in our world.  To be fair, the plot is that a squad of United Nations soldiers get teleported to the Monster Hunter world, but the first bit of the film takes place in our world.  This is like fucking up scrambled eggs, how do you do that?!

Anyway, I was filled with glee when I watched this movie, and it did not disappoint my...disappointing expectations.  

Oh, also, this film stars Paul Andersons wife, Milla Jovovich, and if you've seen the Resident Evil movies, you know she'll be doing super human feats of strength and just be so cool you guys.

The premise is that Milla Jovovich is leader of a squad of soldiers from the UN investigating the disappearance of a squad, when they get teleported to another world through a lightning storm plus some weird ruins.

First off: The monsters look fantastic.  I cannot explain the joy I felt seeing the main first monster, Diablos, on the screen.  They did shrink the Diablos wings, but, honestly?  It's a burrowing monster that in all the games in the series never flies, so it looks much better with vestigial wings. The CGI effects are nice, and there's some real stunts in there as well, which I appreciate more.

While the plot is not following any plot from Monster Hunter, time and effort was put into to make the human characters look like they came from a Monster hunter game.  This includes some armor made form monsters that you can make in the games, and some that just look like NPC's.  Either way, they did a good job making this movie feel like a monster hunter movie.

The acting...well, let's just say it isn't great, but isn't like, terrible either.  Decent job all around, really, I guess.

The music...is nothing note worthy, which is a shame since the series has AMAZING music in my opinion.  I own all the music starting from monster hunter 4, and there's been 3 major games after 4.

Unfortunately, this movie ends on a cliffhanger.  Which, if you've ever seen any of Paul Andersons films, you knew this was going to happen.  Guy is seriously allergic to ending things.

I give this film...a 3 out of five stars, maybe 2.5 stars.  Sure, it's not a good movie by any means, but it's a good monster hunter experience.  While the previously reviewed Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild is honestly better overall, it's not by a lot.

See you all next review, which probably be soon since I have a ton of finished reviews stockpiled up.

Bunker Punks

...Punks.  In Bunkers.  Let's go, this is Bunker Punks.

In the Apocalyptic future, everyone will be punks!

So, Bunker Punks is an old school shooter released in 2018.  It's a pretty simple and short game, so this review will be short.  It's a Rogue Light game, which means dying is part of the process of learning to win the game.

The story is simple: In the future, a bunch of cataclysmic events happened, and corporations take over the governments of the nations in the future.   It's not a distant future by any means, and you play as the Bunker Punks, who raids facilities to steal stuff to fund there movement to eventually overthrow the evil corporations. 

The gameplay is split between bunker building/strategy layer and the First person shooter run and gun levels.  You spend money earned during raids, on upgrading the bunker you live in, which upgrade damage, health, armor, or heals punks in certain instances during raids.  

During the raids, you kill drones, both the robotic and people kind, to collect money, tech, and new weapons or armor.  There's an elevator at the end of each level or floor, that is the exit point to the next floor, or the exit point of the raid, depending on what floor your on.  

When you inevitably die, you lose all progress...Except for the tech you earned, which you spend after you fail a play through, to unlock different armor,weapons, bunker base upgrades, and even more punks to play as so if you accidentally die as one punk, can continue as another. 

The weapons are split between pistols, shotguns, rifles, melee weapons, and explosive.  Pistols are generic medium range weapons, shotguns get a bonus to damage at short range, rifles get a bonus at long range, and explosive weapon have an area of effect of damage, meaning don't fire point blank.  I have never encountered a melee weapon yet, but presumably they do a lot of damage.

It's an okay game for what it is.  I give it 3.5 stars out of 5.  It's fairly solid, and I enjoyed it for what it was, and it was only 10-15 dollars.  I've spent more for worse products.

Anyway, see you all next time!