HOW TO FAIL AT FILM-MAKING
An important thing to consider when making a film, is the source material upon which the movie is made upon. Often, the properties that consider and are respectful of the source material create a well done adaptations, such as the 1950’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Disney, or the 2019 movie IT.
However, then there are the times when…this does not happen. In fact there are plenty of film adaptations that ignore the source material and suffer for it. One good example is the Percy Jackson duopoly of films, both of which completely, excuse my language, shat all over Rick Riordan’s work and are remembered only as disastrous and ill-conceived attempts at making money.
Another example, a more modern one, and one that is arguably even worse, is Monster Hunter 2020, a movie starring Milla Jovovich. That movie…was horrendous. I could go on an entire rant explaining how it disrespects the characters of the franchise, the tone of the franchise, the setting of the franchise, the mythology and lore of the franchise, the creatures of the franchise, the environments of the franchise, and the spirit of the franchise all in the span of two hours.
I could explain in great detail at how this film fails at providing an engaging storyline, an interesting cast, a compelling arc for the protagonist, or even decently choreographed action scenes.
I could explain all of that, because I assure you, the film does indeed fail at all of those things, but I will not. Instead, as this is a class dedicated to production of media, I will talk about how the film fails at sound design as well.
In a Movie called Monster Hunter, based on the game Monster Hunter, where the main protagonist is a Monster Hunter… the sound design of the monsters is awful. They sound like cheap imitations of their game versions, and of the three prominently featured monsters, (which is a joke. Only three?), the only one that sounds remotely accurate is Rathalos, while the Diablos only makes its classic screeches once or twice, and the Nerscylla, simply acts and sounds like a generic giant spider. I swear I heard stock sound effects at least multiple times in the film, it was that bad.
The music was underwhelming, as the movie did not make use of the wonderful musical tracks present in the games, nor did it attempt to put any effort into the sound design.
All in all, a huge disappointment. Do not watch that movie.
But man, did it feel good to rant about it.