Kraven the Hunter (2024)

​"Kraven the Hunter" stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, and Russell Crowe.  Released on December 13, 2024, the film has a hunter using his given powers to hunt his enemies.

The film is directed by J. C. Chandor, who also directed "Margin Call", "All Is Lost", "A Most Violent Year", and "Triple Frontier".  It is based on the Marvel Comics character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.  It is also the sixth and final installment in Sony's Spider-Man Universe.  We certainly have hits and misses regarding the big-budget franchises, especially the superhero genre.  However, none has faltered harder than Sony's "Spider-Man-less" Cinematic Universe.  If you've been following my reviews of Sony's Spider-Man Universe, you'd immediately realize that this spin-off franchise has been one of the strangest and messiest ideas to come out of Hollywood.  Except for the "Venom" trilogy, the attempts to make the villains into anti-heroes have ranged from mediocre to "Madame Web".  Well, technically, Madame Web isn't who I would call a villain, but you get the idea.  "Madame Web" started 2024 with a noiseless whimper regarding its financial and critical reception, but the trilogy-closer "Venom: The Last Dance" compensated for that disappointment, mainly because everybody knows Venom more than Madame Web.

Now, the franchise is looking to close the year by introducing another well-known Spider-Man villain whose bite is worse than their bark: Kraven the Hunter.  Equipped with superhuman strength, agility, and hunting skills, Kraven is one of Spider-Man's formidable foes who always enjoys the thrill of the hunt, especially when hunting his superhero prey.  However, despite being as dangerous as Clayton from "Tarzan", Kraven is one of the villains who've never received the live-action film treatment in the Spider-Man franchise.  He has appeared in the cartoons, but the hunter's popularity wasn't enough to consider him worthy of hunting his unsuspecting prey on the big screen.  That is until Sony finally decided to use the character to connect their own superhero universe without the iconic webhead but with a catch.  It emphasizes Kraven's brutality more in an R-rated fashion, which the studio should've done for Venom.  But is it enough to close off this divisive universe?  Let's join the hunt and find out.

The story centers on Sergei Kravinoff (Taylor-Johnson), a big-game hunter striving to stray far from the path chosen by his estranged father, Nikolai (Crowe), a ruthless crime lord who favors power.  After being attacked by a vicious lion during his hunt, Sergei was resurrected by a substance that enhanced his senses and strength.  Now equipped with his given powers, Sergei embarks on a violent rampage to prey upon those who harm the wildlife, including his father's enemies, with the help of a voodoo priestess, Calypso Ezili (DeBose).  However, when his estranged brother Dmitri (Hechinger) is taken by the Russian mercenary Aleksei Sytsevich (Nivola), Sergei sets out to rescue him, leading him to become the most feared hunter ever.

Like my experience with Madame Web, I've only known Kraven from the Spider-Man cartoons and video games.  His passion for hunting and impeccable skills have made a strong impression on me regarding his connection with the Marvel hero, even if some of his arcs work better than others.  While I relate more with Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Venom, I still consider Kraven another example of a supervillain done right.  With him getting his first live-action treatment, it allows the filmmakers an opportunity to elevate the villain's popularity outside of comics the same way they did with Venom with "Spider-Man 3" and the solo trilogy.  But, of course, there's also the matter of its lack of Spider-Man that has plagued the previous installments in Sony's cinematic universe.  Not to mention that this is the first installment in that franchise to receive an R-rating on account of its brutal violence, which could either elevate or downgrade its storytelling quality.  Regardless, I was still interested in seeing if a villain like Kraven could work as another fun villain/anti-hero origin film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, similar to "Venom".  That is, until I watched the hunt unfold, and from a critical perspective, I realized it was not as thrilling as I had hoped.

From the marketing, it's evident that "Kraven the Hunter" is another superhero movie that follows the fundamental routine of an origin story.  You have Sergei as an ordinary man or hunter who gains superhuman abilities through some absurd reason and uses them to harm terrible people and even confront his past.  Everything you've seen in other superhero origin movies of years past was applied to "Kraven the Hunter", a low-stakes and commonplace blockbuster that easily resembles the ones from the early 2000s, and rightfully so.  Unfortunately, that doesn't make this an occasion where it's so bad it's good.  Maybe it will be in the future, but right now, it's just another inferior attempt at reinvigorating the superhero genre with a disjointed and uninspired origin narrative.  Although, at the very least, it's a bit more watchable than "Madame Web" since the effort for some of its merits exists within its bloody carnage, but that's not saying much.

One of those merits was Aaron Taylor-Johnson, filling in the shoes of the titular Spider-Man villain.  Taylor-Johnson is no stranger to Marvel movies, having portrayed Pietro Maximoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with "Avengers: Age of Ultron".  While it seems odd that he now plays two different Marvel characters in distinct universes, it's hard to ignore Aaron Taylor-Johnson's talents in other films like "Godzilla", "The Wall", "Bullet Train", and "The Fall Guy".  So, I didn't doubt he would be able to carry a flawed movie like this, which he did.  Was it his best performance?  Not really.  However, Taylor-Johnson's portrayal of a vengeful yet sympathetic hunter serves as a reminder of how talent can showcase a movie's potential, even if it fails on multiple accounts.  He even had a couple of moments that warrant my slight chuckles amid its bleak tone.  They're not "Tom Hardy as Venom" hilarious, but they weren't dull either.

Another thing I found passable was the movie's action sequences.  Unlike the previous SSU installments, "Kraven the Hunter" received the dreaded R-rating for its violence, and boy, does it warrant that rating.  It's bloody and brutal, with a dash of amusement to go along with it.  J. C. Chandor has his experience with adult-rated and squeamish violence in his filmography, including the mildly enjoyable "Triple Frontier" in 2019, so it's no surprise that he's able to suitably display this element in "Kraven the Hunter".  I wouldn't call the action crowd-pleasing or surprising as another adult-rated Marvel film, "Deadpool & Wolverine," since most of the sequences were less impactful due to its hit-and-miss CGI effects.  However, it is satisfying to see Kraven stab someone with a tiger's tooth.  

Regarding everything else besides those merits, it's clear that J. C. Chandor is another filmmaker who got stuck at the crossroads with Sony's choices.  The film's screenplay follows the usual necessities of a superhero origin story to depict Sergei's journey of finding his own path, leading him to one that may be inescapable.  Sadly, it lacked a more substantial depth in its story and characters to warrant its themes, especially when it involves nature conservation, resulting in a cliched, crowded, and insipid anti-hero adventure packed with brutal flair and corny dialogue.  It had an interesting idea of Sergei's conversion from hunting animals to protecting them, especially in the first act, but after that, he just went off to rescue his half-brother from his father's enemies.  I think if the script emphasized his "animal lover" side more, it might've added more interest and charm to its "violent rampage" plot.  But what do I know?  I'm a movie watcher who doesn't read that much comics in my spare time.  It also doesn't help that the editing was inconsistent with its structure and pacing.  It felt like they left specific scenes on the cutting room floor, making the narrative flow seem clunky and rushed, even in its two-hour-plus runtime.

While Taylor-Johnson made an effort to display his animalistic side, the rest of the cast struggled to follow suit.  Ariana DeBose may not have gained more recognition post-"West Side Story", but she had proved to be a worthy presence in the acting department, even if her recent films weren't well-received.  "Kraven the Hunter" could've been another example of this theory, but alas, it is not.  Regarding the screenplay, Calypso didn't offer much to her personality outside of guiding Sergei to make her another strong female character worth remembering.  As for DeBose, I hate to say that this is her weakest performance so far regarding her line delivery.  There's this one scene involving her where it sounded like she just stopped giving a lion's butt about the film and wanted to move on to a different project, and I don't blame her.  This might be due to the direction given to her, but regardless, I wasn't feeling that connection between DeBose and her character.  Russell Crowe had his moments as Nikolai, even if his accent did sound a bit off-putting, but not enough to overshadow his weak character arc.  The only "tolerable" actor I was surprised with was Alessandro Nivola, who previously collaborated with Chandor in "A Most Violent Year".  His performance as Aleksei, aka "Rhino", was laughably absurd for the right reasons despite him being another straightforward villain among others.  Plus, I found his "Rhino" appearance to be a bit better than Paul Giamatti's take on the character in "Amazing Spider-Man 2", mainly because he's not in a mech suit.

Overall, "Kraven the Hunter" lacks the narrative and coherence prowess to become the cinematic equivalent of an apex predator.  As mentioned earlier, it's a bit more tolerable than "Madame Web" because of the effort to make specific corny sequences watchable, including Aaron Taylor-Johnson's commitment to the titular role.  Sadly, they're not enough for me to consider it enjoyably bad, like the "Venom" trilogy.  Instead, it comes off as a tedious and poorly structured origin film that lacks the storytelling expertise to hunt alongside its brutally pleasant violence.  With its bland supporting cast, weak screenplay and direction, incoherent editing, and rough visuals, this hunt doesn't have the thrills and passion to compete in the crowded holiday season.

Considering that "Kraven the Hunter" is now the last film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, this is not the proper way to close this unresolved universe.  Admittedly, the idea of focusing on Spider-Man's villain library could've worked if the commitment to adapting the characters existed and Sony provided the right team to craft its blueprint properly.  However, the studio's direction and attempt to keep some of its own Marvel characters from Disney got in the way of that potential.  As a result, it left us with a questionable and messy saga with an uncertain future that hardly has anything to do with Spider-Man.  At least, with that universe behind us, Sony can now start focusing on the projects that do have Spider-Man in them to compensate for its troubles.  Who knows?  Maybe we'll see these characters from that universe come back for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in some shape or form.  But based on my experience with this clunky universe, I won't be surprised if they don't.

D