Kraven the Hunter Review | The Last Nail in the Coffin of a Universe Nobody Asked For

Sony’s Spiderman Univerese’s new film, and hopefully the final film, Kraven the Hunter, is out now in India, and it just feels like a dull and worn-out film. Much like the other debacles in the SSU, Morbius and Madame Web, this one also feels like that movie that got made just for the sake of making a movie based on a Spiderman universe character. I am not a comic book nerd who knows the precise history of this character. But Kraven The Hunter has too many generic beats of a usual thriller, and the screenplay just can’t entice you by providing interesting conflicts.

So we are shown the history of this character, Sergei Kravinoff, who has a very narcissistic and male ego-driven father, Nikolai, and a half-brother, Dmitri, who loves him. The father’s hunter philosophies never really resonated with Sergei, and an incident during a hunting with his father eventually results in the separation of the two. What we see in the movie is a present-day story where a vigilante Sergei, who now calls himself Kraven, is in a situation where he has to save his brother due to the activities of his father.

The lack of enthusiasm to set up this character is very evident from frame one. The typical stuff you see in jail movies is followed by a set piece. The flashback that gives us an idea about how he became this supernatural character also feels pretty unimaginative in terms of presenting it to the audience. The quintessential scenes that will feature the hero as a justice-delivering guy are also there. How they have made Kraven the enemy of the villain is through a book that Kraven has, which he decided to take up just like that. All these dramatic tropes like bad parenting, wildlife empathy, and an abandoned younger brother, etc., are pretty much getting that in-your-face kind of treatment.

The reason why Kraven got involved in the mess his dad created is revealed in the final moments of the movie, and to be frank, if someone uses that as an idea to pitch a story, any studio head would ask them to develop that idea. Written by Equalizer writer Richard Wenk and rewritten by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, the film is struggling to walk away from cliches. The movie has multiple antagonists like the Rhino and the Foreigner, and the film just can’t create any sort of intimidation in the audience’s mind with those characters. What eventually happens to a Magneto like Foreigner is unintentionally funny, and the visual effects of Rhino were really terrible. The CGI, in general, for this movie looked bad, especially the stuff we see in daylight. The acceptance of Venom has made them give the film a gory treatment in fight sequences, but none of them had anything unique to give us that wow factor. The way Kraven tried to stop a helicopter looked like a beta version of the iconic attempt of Captain America in Civil War.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Kraven has the required physique and the rugged attitude of a hunter with wild instincts and the actor fits into the mold of that character. Russel Crowe as Nikolai, a ruthless and egoistic Russian gangster was fine in a role that felt like a cakewalk for the Gladiator actor. Fred Hechinger as Dmitri gets to portray a role that feels demanding as an actor. Alessandro Nivola and Christopher Abbott as Rhino and Foreigner respectively have the required swagger in their performances, but the scattered writing makes them look like disturbing comical annoyances in a family drama. Ariana DeBose as Calypso ends up being the usual leading lady whose role has importance in the story of the hero, but in terms of screen time, there is hardly anything for the actor.

J. C. Chandor’s Kraven the Hunter is an underwhelming and underwritten superhero flick that has the same enthusiasm towards telling a story that Sony has in continuing this cinematic universe. With the movie having this origin story feel and desperation to include far too many characters, Kraven the Hunter feels like a collection of forgettable action set pieces that do not have a single moment worth reminiscing. If you have the same opinion of Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra about Madame Web, that it is actually a good movie, then you can give Kraven the Hunter a shot.