Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild 2021

As a fan of the series since Monster Hunter on the PSP I wanted to give this movie a shot. It's a movie about a young aspiring hunter who's name I've already forgotten since the characters don't have anything interesting going on. His village is under threat by a Monster and it's up to him and a couple of experienced guild hunters to find a way to avoid the annihilation of the village.

Let's begin with some positives. As a veteran of the series its amazing to see that there are some details from the game that make a return in the movie like: weapon animations, items, signature monster attacks, elemental fx, some slightly familiar natural environments, weapons, creatures and armor. But if you're looking for a nostalgia fix don't think too much of the above.

Now let's get to the things that I didn't really like. The style in which the animation is done took me about 10 minutes to get used to. After remembering that the pre-rendered animations from the games are a little bit in the same style I gave it a pass. But sadly they games looked way better. There are some moments where to movie looks good (enough) but that is for the majority in fight scenes where the monsters and characters are more in focus. There was another thing that was ruining my experience and that was the English voice acting. after about 5 minutes I switched to Japanese which was a bit better, the lipsync was a bit off tho but it was a hit I was willing to take because the facial animations were boring and stiff anyway. But buckle up because there's more... the world doesn't portray anything that the games are working so hard for to achieve. The wilderness doesn't feel like a breathing ecosystem and the village doesn't look like it's worth saving, it looks like a shithole and doesn't have any inviting atmosphere. Now you would think that the action scenes would make up for the boring story, setting and characters but thanks to bad camera work and terrible audioFX the movements and attacks of the monsters do not feel that powerful.

This only covers how the movie looks and feels but sadly there are many plotholes that are so stupid it will make the entire plot, character motives and some scenes totally unnecessary. The good thing is that the length of this movie is below one hour. So, if you're a fan of the series and are willing to take this movie not too seriously you can probably get some enjoyment out of it. If you're new to the series I would suggest a drinking game where a lot of alcohol is involved.