Rating: **
Review Date: 3/8/25
Director: Paul Anderson
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista
"All men are beasts."
"But not all men are monsters."
In a post-apocalyptic world, the remnants of humankind are ruled by the sinister and sadistic church. The queen employs the outlaw witch Gray Alys (Milla Jovovich) to travel to the Lost Lands and retrieve the ability to transform into a werewolf, for personal reasons. Unable to refuse, Alys teams up with a skilled and brutal hunter named Boyce (Dave Bautista) to lead her to Skull River, where a werewolf can be found. Meanwhile, in a bid for power, the corrupt church defies the queen and sends its army into the Lost Lands to stop Alys. As Boyce's opening narration proclaims, "This isn't a fairy tale and there is no happy ending."
Unfortunately, it seems like director Paul Anderson keeps making the same movie over and over, and it seems to get a little worse each time. Much like his previous "Monster Hunter" (2020), it's painfully bad and the cringe-worthy dialog is atrocious. More than anything it reminded me of "Priest" (2011), but it feels like it should have been made into a video game rather than a movie. It's extremely effects-laden and utilizes a lot of virtual set technology, which lends it a certain artificial look, similar to Zak Snyder's work. Stylistically, it feels like it should have come out in the 90s, which also fits with Anderson's MO. While some of the scenes of post-apocalyptic destruction are nice to look at, the majority of the scenery is annoyingly fuzzy, as if it were trying too hard to blur out the tell-tale signs of CGI with atmospheric haze and light bloom effects. The action is dull and uninspired, and what little movement that Jovovich and Bautista provide is fed through a rapid edit blender to try and create the illusion of speed and extreme motion. It only succeeds in being annoying and disappointing. Not even the overly oppressive doom-and-gloom soundtrack could keep me engaged. However, the one improvement over "Monster Hunter" is that Milla Jovovich's performance is MUCH better, and she also looks a lot healthier and less plastic, for lack of a better word. Her hair looks kind of goofy, but it does a good job of framing her face.
It's definitely a dud of a film, but through no fault of the two leads. Their charisma and star power keeps the film on track, despite the awful dialog that they're strapped with and the general overall nonsense of the plot. Their performances are much better than the material deserves. It's an unexpectedly timely film, as it's a bleak and depressing portrait of Donald Trump's America, except that there are no heroes with extraordinary powers who will step forth to save the day.