Following an elaborate introduction, a young Sergei Kravinoff (played by Levi Miller, and later Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and his brother Dmitri (Billy Barratt/Fred Hechinger), are taken out of school by their father, Nikolai (Russell Crowe), after their mother dies. Nikolai takes them to Africa, where he finds the best way to deal with grief is to drink and hunt. While here, Kraven is attacked by a giant lion, dragged off and nearly killed, saving Dmitri. A mystical potion brings Kraven back from the brink, infusing his blood with a drop from the lion, giving Kraven the senses and respect of the animal kingdom. Kraven must distance himself from his father’s rule, growing up in isolation, but gaining an international reputation by himself as “The Hunter”, a silent assassin whose identity is unknown. Kraven the Hunter is directed by J. C. Chandor.
I spent a large portion of this movie’s first 30 minutes just thinking, “what are we doing?” What is the purpose of all this? We are jet-setting all over the world, like the movie can’t sit still. Because Kraven is Russian, but he’s from New York, yet he lives in London, while he hunts in Ghana. This movie’s setup for this fledging antihero is bland, bland, bland, bland. But then we see the Rhino (Alessandro Nivola), and I turn into Donkey from Shrek, because “oh, now we are getting somewhere!” At last, I understand what this movie is trying to do 😌 Kraven the Hunter is more like a mobster movie than anything else, or hitman drama, or Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s audition for 007, utilizing multiple classic Spider-Man villains as the pillars for its melodrama. It’s actually an interesting attempt by Sony, by my estimation, even if it doesn’t all truly come together 😞 And I don’t really think it’s a result of the premise that fails, but rather in how this movie is lacking in all the nuance, the emotional tissue that’s supposed to help us care about the characters. And it wouldn’t be the first time that Sony movies have rushed to get to the good stuff instead of developing the right empathetic glue to stick it all together.
A massive misstep in Kraven the Hunter is making Kraven just as forthright and murderous as his father, while the movie demands we consider Kraven our hero, with multiple scenes of Kraven self-righteously scolding his father as a monster. I was glad when Dmitri finally calls him out on that, and I think the movie could’ve been improved if Kraven showcased an inner turmoil, in that he was aware his actions were underhandedly helping his father, by knocking out his criminal rivals, but he just couldn’t bear to move against blood, nor could he tolerate being under the same roof as him. I think the movie could’ve also been improved if Rhino’s initial introduction made him seem a more prominent member of Nikolai’s business, where a final battle between Kraven and Rhino could be meant to be interpreted as two failed “sons” butting heads in their solo expeditions. For instance, instead of Nikolai merely calling Rhino shit – without even hearing him out – Nikolai could have more distinctly embarrassed the Rhino, once considered a confidant, before shoving him away. It’s all the details, peoples, it’s all in the details.
But despite a movie’s quality, I can sometimes give praise just based on the dynamic of the cast. Yet Kraven the Hunter is the strangest and most remarkable hodgepodge of unusual talents that I have ever seen. It’s like a smalltown amateur theatre production, where limited bodies are available, and you just have to make best with who’s willing to be there 😄 Russell Crowe fits the part, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson is really quite good – even if I don’t support this version of Kraven the Hunter, really, when I’ve known the character as an adrenaline hunter in the comic’s golden age. But I can’t believe Christopher Abbott is now a comic book villain. Fred Hechinger is now a comic book villain. These guys I’ve seen in other things and never considered them a sniff to come close to megastars from the Spider-Man rogues gallery. I suppose this movie is just a reflection on how many actors and actresses have already been plugged into glorified roles on the superhero highway, and this movie must deal with what’s left 🙄 I thought Ariana DeBose was awful – and I was strongly in her camp when she won her Academy Award for West Side Story; but witchy lawyers that excel at archery may not be in her wheelhouse. Christopher Abbott was actually quite cool, and I would’ve liked to have learnt more about his Foreigner before his untimely death. Alessandro Nivola’s Rhino is the best of it, just for his civilian look, with backpack, giving vibes of an autistic analyst 🤓 I’m probably again in that sweet spot with most of these characters, as I was with Birds of Prey, where I may recognise them, but don’t really know their entire bibliography to comment on if they’ve been severely butchered or not. But comic fans the world over must be happier with this depiction of the Rhino than Paul Giamatti’s abomination in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, even if the CGI for this movie’s finale is still underwhelming. Yet, for me, Rhino’s civilian look was enough alone because it reminded me heavily of David Walliams from Little Britain, and I couldn’t decide whether Rhino was Emily Howard out of drag, or Anne escaped from the psychiatric ward 😄 IYKYK, and I have my own head cannon 🤯
And I still get a kick out of seeing Spider-Man villains on the big screen! Gosh, sometimes I’m a simple creature. I just never thought I’d ever see a mobster movie attempting to combine Kraven, Rhino, Chameleon, and co. – as if Daredevil and Kingpin hadn’t already cornered that market at Marvel. And story-time – before the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies came out, I wrote my own rough treatments for four instalments of a new Spider-Man franchise; want to know who was in them? No? Well, I’m telling you anyway! I proposed Chameleon and the Enforcers would be in Movie 1; Vulture and Kraven had Movie 2. Movie 3 was to be Hobgoblin and Goblin, and Venom was in Movie 4. So here I am, just chuffed that a few more of these characters have made their onscreen debuts – which is something, significant, because I could be sulking with my arms crossed at how poorly they’ve been handled. I did recognise, at one crucial stage of the movie, that I was invested in seeing how it ends. What a strange concept though – almost as strange as how so many comic book movies (Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter, from this year alone) think it’s enough to show us our heroes and villains posing in their traditional garb to end a movie, as if that’s enough to gee up interest in a sequel, when the personality of the characters in question might’ve changed so much in the leadup. I get the impracticality of having Kraven the Hunter running around assassinating people in a lion mane, but having Kraven sit on a throne in a mansion he wanted nothing to do with, is icky, especially when he never wanted that lion killed in the first place either. There’s a lot of lackluster effort going into this movie, but that’s been the story of the Sony Spin-Off Spider-Man Series since Day 1. For me, Kraven the Hunter might fall around the mark of some other movies from the spy action genre, in Red Sparrow and Gemini Man – stories that have an interesting spin on things, but can’t get out their own way, for one reason or another. And its connection with an audience that suffers.
2.5
P.S. Oh yeah, my Spider-Man theory – Venom, Morbius, Madame Web, and now Kraven the Hunter, make four attempts to start a Sony Spider-Man universe without Spider-Man, to varying success. Although these characters may have all spun off to create their own domes of reality in the comics, they all first gained notoriety juxtaposed to Spider-Man, where their introductions could form their characterisations in opposition to what was already established about Spider-Man. This cinematic universe consistently foregoes that setup and has failed time and time again in preparing the additional legwork needed to establish these characters alone, in making them interesting enough, or noble enough, for audiences to care about. I actually think Morbius had the best shot at breaking free, as a viable antihero, and the Venom movies have eked out a trilogy, but now, as we’ve discussed, Kraven the Hunter shouldn’t be taking off. Kraven the Hunter, perhaps the last maligned cinematic production surgically removed for the spotlight, absent from the web crawler.
Leave a Reply