Rating: 2.5/5
Synopsis:
It seems that after “Kraven the Hunter”, Sony’s Spider-Man-less universe may be placed on hold. This villain-centered film follows Sergei, a man who has the strength and speed of a lion due to an incident from his childhood. After a longstanding, complicated relationship with his father sours, he sets out on a quest to rid the world of people like him. These enhanced abilities and vengeance push him to become the world’s greatest hunter. But instead of hunting game, he goes after those who prey on the weak.
Positives:
After observing initial critical reaction to the film, I believe many are being too harsh on it. While “Kraven the Hunter” is no piece of exquisite cinema, it has some redeeming factors that elevate it above “Madame Web” and “Morbius”. The best part is the gritty premise. I always enjoy a good revenge flick so hearing about Kraven’s background intrigued me. Kraven has always been an interesting villain for Spider-Man as he follows a strict moral code when hunting. Here, there is a twist to his ideology to make him more of a protagonist. This works well enough for the story at hand as his philosophy on hunting directly contrasts with his father’s. But at the same time, Kraven has tendencies to dance around the law and do things his own way. In that regard, he is a great antihero.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson does a nice job with the material he is given, clearly caring about the role and fleshing out the character. Russell Crowe is fine but his one note character brings him down a notch. Allesandro Nivola probably gives the most enjoyable performance of the movie as The Rhino. He understands the film he’s in, leaning into the sillier tendencies of the character and always being an entertaining piece to the story. There are a handful of popular Spider-Man characters that pop up throughout the film that were fun to see. Unfortunately, Spidey was not around to combat them. The potential for the film to be truly awesome was there, so if we do see Kraven return to the big screen I hope they take advantage of the great stories he has been a part of.
Negatives:
“Kraven the Hunter” is the definition of a mixed bag. While it has some fun sequences and a great cast, there are some undeniable shortcomings that hamper the presentation of the film. As fans have come to expect, some of the Sonyisms that plagued the previous Spider-Man-less films are present here. It baffles me that these issues continue to hurt this franchise. On a technical level, “Kraven” suffers from some choppy editing, poor dialogue, and spotty CGI. There are some action sequences and character interactions that look like they were pieced together in post production to make the scene feel fluid, but in reality the way the scenes were cut actually made them clunkier. Some baffling dialogue is a problem, where the delivery of the lines will make audiences wonder if the film was intended to be a comedy. I think every single actor has done better work but the dialogue they are given doesn’t help their performance. At least Alessandro Nivola leans into the campiness of the character so his silly role flows better in the film.
Some have criticized the look of The Rhino in the film. I actually thought he looked pretty good (better than putting a guy in a leather Rhino suit to remain comic accurate). The CGI on him is not the problem. The poor special effects are more obvious when Kraven is jumping from building to building. It’s clear they added this later in the VFX room and it looks completely fake. Since the film is rated R, they added lots of CGI blood in post production to make the film grittier. Practical effects would have made the violent scenes more impactful rather than some noticeably fake blood. I also wonder what tone director J.C. Chandor wanted to achieve with the film. The story presents a serious tone but has some unintentionally comical moments. If they sharpened up the script they could have succeeded with the serious adaptation. Perhaps leaning into the campiness of the story would have worked better with the script they were working with.
Conclusion:
What could have been a dumpster fire actually turns out to be okay. I saw some great potential with Kraven’s first time on the big screen. It’s a bummer that we’ve come to expect piss poor attempts with Sony’s Spider-Man-less universe, so being just okay feels like a win in a way. I believe that Kraven could get an awesome standalone movie if they get the smaller details right. A better script and cleaner special effects might have helped the appeal to hardcore comic book fans. But I fear that Kraven will fall into the criticisms of the other movies Sony has produced recently. It is leaps and bounds better than “Madame Web” or “Morbius”, but it doesn’t reach the fun and ridiculousness of the “Venom” films. Hopefully this pause on the Sonyverse will give them a chance to reflect and do some course correction. I’d love to see Kraven on the big screen again but some changes need to be made. Maybe…just maybe…he will fight Spider-Man. A fan can hope!
