‘Kraven The Hunter’ Review: A Safari For The Last Marvel Dime Outside Disney
The history of Sony’s endeavors with Spider-Man characters needs no recap. Their studio thought they could do things the Marvel Way without the backing of Disney or the library of IP The Mouse owns. They made a lot of mistakes as a result, but if you think they learned from them, you’re going to be disappointed – again.
In Kraven the Hunter, the issues are much the same as in Madame Web; a smattering of random characters thrown together without the benefit of their true origins or the complexity years of history bestows. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Kraven – or a version of him you’ll barely recognize.
When he was a boarding school brat, he almost dies on a safari with his father, played by Russell Crowe, and his brother Dimitri, played by Fred Hechinger. His future girlfriend (Calypso, who is played mainly by Ariana DeBose) happens by, and lucky for him, she possesses a magic potion that saves his life and gives him superpowers.
Kraven runs away from home to become an overnight one-man army dealing bloody, vengeful justice to people behind bars, rich poachers in the wild, and assorted thugs with mob ties. You get the idea. It’s a Punisher/Wolverine/John Wick sort of premise with action, death, some gore, lots of running, and a superhero landing or two.
More than one actor is playing the main parts, including The Hunter himself, thanks to a few time jumps, but who cares? None of that is relevant except to the story beats, which isn’t why anyone would go to see this thing.
The curious enough moviegoers, fans especially, want to know if it’s as bad as they feared. It might depend on your threshold, but I’m here to tell you, yeah, probably. If you thought Madame Web did a piss-poor job of interpreting its characters or coming up with snappy original dialogue, Kraven won’t brighten your mood.
To be fair, there are entertaining aspects and Taylor-Johnson is often fun to follow when he goes to full beast mode. However, I don’t know who he is playing, but it’s definitely not the Kraven comic readers are familiar with. The former Kick-Ass is too handsome and suave to be the gruff unforgiving foe who once buried Spider-Man alive.
It could be the reshoots, but whenever called for, his performance resembles aspects of Stephen Amell’s Green Arrow and then shifts to tropes of James Bond or Jason Bourne. Along the way, you might notice ‘itsy’ bits of Spidey in him too, though they won’t make up for the lack of the Webhead.
The only one who comes close to an accurate Kraven is Russell Crowe as Papa Nikolai. He puts on the accent, he kills animals without remorse, and he looks the part better than ATJ. I can’t help but think the addition of Crowe was an idea left over from the Sam Raimi days. I’ll bet he had a shortlist of names to play Kraven just in case and ‘Maximus’ was at the top.
No one is like they should be, but that’s doubly true for Rhino played by Alessandro Nivola. We’re still dealing with Aleksei Sytsevich although there is little improvement from Paul Giamatti’s comedic portrayal in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. In fact, they might have fumbled it worse here.
Instead of a hulking guy in a suit, which he can’t take off, Aleksei has a mutation gifted to him by one Miles Warren whom we never see. To keep it at bay until needed, he carries around a special IV bag in a backpack attached to a tube that feeds into his side. It’s only when he removes it that his skin hardens and someone is required to take away his credit card.
I know that doesn’t sound like The Rhino at all and more like some dork who wants to be a crime lord. To a tee, that’s what this version is – Bill Gates if he was even more of a supervillain.
Other characters, such as The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott), are barely in the thing and are of little consequence, but are built up as final-boss-level threats. They feel like mishmashes of several ideas condensed into one poorly crafted idea extraneously thrown into the action.
That’s the best way to describe Sony’s flailing Spider-Man multiverse. They want to make the best of what they have, but they lack the focus and intelligence to do so. Well, they tried, but the hunt ends here and you know what’s funny? The cartoons did it better and still do.
READ NEXT: ‘Madame Web’ Review – What’s One More Spider-Verse Wannabe Stuck In The Past?
Kraven the Hunter
PROS
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson is good overall with trite material
- Watching Russell Crowe pick up a check
- Alessandro Nivola as Rhino, though dumb, is still amusing albeit with a few beers
CONS
- Jank visual effects including Chameleon's face
- Sequel bait including a Miles Warren/Jackal tease serves no purpose
- It's clear they were trying to replace Spider-Man with Kraven to some degree
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