By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
The good news is Sony has announced that they will be discontinuing their Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU), at least for now. The bad news is they still released this film for audiences to mistakenly endure. “Kraven the Hunter” is the latest anti-hero comic book film fresh off the heels of the equally bad “Venom: The Last Dance” production. Like the others before it, this features a weak, poorly written storyline, cringe-worthy acting, and boring action sequences.
Citing major daddy issues, Sergei Kravinoff aka Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has become the most feared hunter in the world. He brings the vilest criminals to his own brand of justice, a gruesomely violent death using whatever tools at his disposal. His father, Nikolai (Russell Crowe), is a Russian crime boss who enjoys hunting himself, and his brother Dmitri aka Chameleon (Fred Hechinger) is always trying to live up to his father’s high standards. After the untimely death of another crime boss, power is up for grabs with Aleksei Sytsevich aka Rhino (Alessandro Nivola) attempting to solidify his position against Nikolai.
Meanwhile, Kraven has a list of ne’er-do-wells he’s looking to kill. Known for his unnatural ability to track down anyone on the planet, he inexplicably begs for help from an attorney named Calypso (Ariana DeBose) to help him find the people on his list (insert head scratching here). Predictably, they find themselves caught in the middle of this crime feud in which Rhino proves to be Kraven’s most difficult prey yet, and his brother’s life hangs in the balance.
This is supposed to be another villain origin story as Kraven is a primary antagonist in the comics, but Sony and director J.C. Chandor couldn’t even get that right with an unfocused story that wanders without direction. The character is built as more of an anti-hero with a commendable code of honor that he only kills the wicked, similar to “The Punisher.” Chandor takes a very obvious, formulaic approach, so much so that the audience can take a nap for half of the film and wake up still knowing exactly what is going on in the story and how it will end. The lack of depth extends to the side characters themselves, who are mostly cookie cutter villain types with faintly connected motivations that fail to rationalize their appearance in the film. As a result, Chandor elicits zero excitement from the action sequences that involve these lame characters making it all utterly pointless.
The director’s introduction and display of characters’ superpowers is pitiful. When Kraven uses his supervision to see far distances, the visual is laughable. Chameleon using his ability to perfectly imitate anyone’s voice is incorporated as a party trick like when he sings a Tony Bennett song. This absurdity shows up time and time again throughout the movie amongst the various powered characters. The extremely poor CGI that Chandor features only exacerbates the many problems, eliminating the integrity of the action scenes.
The star of “Kraven the Hunter” in the titular role is not the reason for this film’s derailment. Aaron Taylor-Johnson successfully brings the edginess to this character with explosive brutality. Despite the clear emphasis on his finely toned abs through an overabundance of shirtless scenes, this quickly rising star proves he has more to offer than just sex appeal. He will next be appearing in the highly anticipated “Nosferatu” on Christmas day.
The rest of the cast lays an egg, which turns rotten with the poorly written, over-explanative dialogue. Russell Crowe’s Russian accent along with his forced and cliched tough love, heartless fatherly approach turns this once Oscar winning actor into a caricature. Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”) is another Oscar winner who is quickly proving to be one of the worst actresses in Hollywood after yet another dismal performance here, which follows her poor showing in “Argylle” earlier this year. Her line delivery and reactions are amateurishly bad, leading to unintentional comedy.
“Kraven the Hunter” will make you want to bite your own nose off to spite your face. Ultimately, the only craving you’ll have after watching this movie is the craving for a refund of your time and money. With SSU’s failure and abandonment, there is literally no reason to see this flawed production so save yourself the frustration of witnessing another dismantling of great Marvel characters.
This movie earns:
