RECENT WATCHES: Kraven: The Hunter (2024)

When it comes to the topic of Spider-Man's rogue gallery, I'll admit to being a fan of Kraven the Hunter. Perhaps owing to reading "The Most Dangerous Game" at an impressionable age, a big game hunter that gets bored with people and starts hunting people is a cool idea for an antagonist. Much like the Predator and the other descendents of General Zaroff, Kraven had a code of honor of sorts, often seeking to hunt only prey equal to himself. The character has a long and convoluted history in the comics too, being a founding member of the Sinister Six, dying in the classic "Kraven's Last Hunt," having numerous off-springs and successors, and finally brought back to life. As established as the character might be, the idea of building an entire movie around him seemed foolhardy. I don't care about Kraven's origins that much. I want to see him fight Spider-Man! This did not stop Sony from choosing Kraven as the fourth character to get a spin-off movie in their Spider-Man Adjacent Cinematic Universe. After the fiascos of "Morbius" and "Madame Web," it was hard to anticipate "Kraven: The Hunter" with anything but a seasick sort of morbid curiosity. Surely, how can it be any more misguided than those two? The time has arrived for me to find out. 

The film presents Sergei Kravenoff as the son of Russian crime boss Nikolai Kravenoff. He often protects his meeker brother, Dimitri, who has an uncanny ability to mimic voices. As a teenager, Sergei was nearly killed by a lion on the African savanna. A young woman named Calypso gave him a potion to save his life, which also granted him the strength, agility, and senses of the jungle's animals. Disgusted with his father's business, Sergei uses his powers to hunt and kill mobsters and poachers. After assassinating a mob boss named Chorney in prison, Kraven opens up a power void in the criminal underworld. A would-be leader named Aleksei – with a bizarre genetic condition – seeks to fill that void. The Kravenoff brothers and Calypso are soon drawn into a web of betrayal and revenge. 

The idea of a movie starring Kraven the Hunter and pointedly not featuring Spider-Man remains an odd one, fueled by Sony's corporate greed and hubris. However, director J.D. Chandor – previously of well-regarded films like "All is Lost" and "A Most Violent Year" – at least finds a decent hook for the character. The "Kraven" movie basically has the elevator pitch of "What if Tarzan was also John Wick?" Kraven uses the strength of a lion, the speed of a cheetah, the agility of a monkey, the eyesight of an eagle and his bond with all wild animals to violently rip apart a litany of generic bad guys. Kraven also disregards guns as an unfair advantage, utilizing crossbows, all sorts of bladed instruments, and even his own teeth to dispatch his opponents. When focused on lengthy action scenes, devoted to this hyper-violent antihero slashing through an army of goons, "Kraven: The Hunter" actually becomes mildly entertaining. This peeks during a mid-film sequence where Kraven fills the woods with all sorts of brutal booby traps for his pursuers. This sequence, alongside the repeated references to what an unstoppable bad-ass this guy is supposed to be, brought the mindless action fests of the eighties to mind. There's a lot of "Rambo" in this movie's messy bloodstream, alongside a little James Bond and the aforementioned Wickian/Tarzanian influence. 

Much like those gloriously campy murder-fests, in which musclebound heroes decimate whole armies, "Kraven: The Hunter" is also very, very silly. The film's constant need to remind us that Sergei has animal-like superpowers result in multiple, borderline hilarious scenes of him running on all-fours, scaling buildings with his bare hands, and peering into the distance with "Manimal" eyes. This silly streak climaxes during a sequence where Kraven avoids detection from some bad guys by... Lurking behind them and moving away whenever they turn around. That ridiculous atmosphere is further supported by hammy performances from Russell Crowe, as the Kravenoff's brothers' bad dad, and Alessandro Nivola as the Rhino. Crowe gets to partake in his favorite activity of speaking in a goofy accent and intoning on manhood, honor, and business. Nivola, meanwhile, plays Aleksei as a ruthless but neurotic nerd who is barely managing to contain his homicidal rage. A scene where he shrieks with a raspy groan in frustration is another highlight. 

The script is equal parts convoluted and obvious. Tarot cards, magical herbs, sci-fi gene splicing, and hypnotic powers weave in and out of a loose plot of gangsters doing gangster shit. I still don't know what the hell the Rhino's goal was exactly and Kraven is treated, contradictorily, as both a legendary myth and a well-known public figure. The story between the brothers and their toxic father is leading towards an inevitable and highly predictable betrayal. Any comic fan worth his salt knows that Kraven's brother is shapeshifting villain the Chameleon and the movie belabors that reveal as long as possible. This represent the film's desperate, sweaty need to tease – and subsequently underuse – other elements of its comic book source material. Ariana DeBose is largely wasted as Calypso, another villain in the comics reduced to a generic love interest here. That Aleksei transforms into a CGI rhino monster in the last act is also an inevitable event the film holds off on as long as possible. Further nods to the source material are here. D-lister Spidey villain the Foreigner is also here. Mad scientist Miles Warren/the Jackal is an oft-referenced but off-screen presence. A link to Spider-Man appears in an especially contrived manner. Mere minutes before the end, Kraven dons his trademark lion face vest, the movie going out on the thought that merely pointing at stuff from the source material is the same as featuring it. 

What of Kraven himself though? Does the film manage to turn a Spider-Man villain into a compelling hero in his own right? Not really! "Kraven" represents the latest attempt by Hollywood to turn Aaron Taylor Johnson into a bankable star. (Not to mention his third superhero role.) Once again, Johnson's generic good looks cover up an unlikable, high school jock-like confidence. This is displayed multiple times, during a number of ill-conceived comedic scenes. Honestly, Johnson is alright as a one-man army, a Jason Voorhees type slashing through his enemies. As a figure of macho toughness and lady-charming charisma, he falls totally flat. This guy just doesn't have that skill set in his toolbox. He's also so roided out that he walks like a baby with a full diaper, lacking the kind of action hero physicality absolutely essential for a role like this. In other words, Johnson might have made a decent villain but, as a ruthless hero whose code of honor is endlessly emphasized, he doesn't work. 

My main thought coming away from "Kraven: The Hunter" is that... If this has been made in 1989 for a fraction of the money and starred someone like Van Damme or Dolph Lundgren, I probably would've liked it a lot. It has that mean spirited violence and that gleeful sense of dumbness. Instead, the film is held back by a wooden leading man and a mishmash of attempts to make this a superhero blockbuster, part of a loose shared universe, but also a reluctance to fully embrace that comic book setting. The result is a mildly entertaining action flick that simply never comes together, either too silly or not silly enough. This film's box office underperformance has supposedly scuttled Sony's plans for a Spider-Man-free Spider-Man Cinematic Universe, a terrible idea that never should have gotten to the point of six movies... Unless they change their mind and reboot it all. So it goes. [6/10]