In retrospect, 2024 could have been the year for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (an accepted moniker despite the fact that the beloved wall-crawler never actually appears in any of the films). With the Marvel Cinematic Universe releasing only one blockbuster due to the Hollywood labor battles in 2023, the door was open for the franchise to grab the spotlight over the last 12 months with three diverse features and wow audiences without any risk of comic book movie overload.
Kraven The Hunter
Release Date: December 13, 2024
Directed By: J.C. Chandor
Written By: Richard Wenk and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, and Russell Crowe
Rating: R for strong bloody violence, and language
Runtime: 127 minutes
Kraven The Hunter: Release Date, Cast, And Other Things We Know About The Movie
Now, it can be said that the endeavor turned out to be a massive flop. S.J. Clarkson’s Madame Web is a disaster in all respects; Kelly Marcel’s Venom: The Last Dance ended the terrible trilogy with a whimper; and while J.C. Chandor’s Kraven The Hunter can be said to be the best of the trio in terms of quality, it’s still a bad film that manages to be both boring and stupid.
It’s not an unending chain of bad decisions like Madame Web, and there is a storytelling logic that is absent from all of the Venom films, but there is so little substance to any of Kraven The Hunter that you get the sense that it became R-rated to give the work even a modicum of flavor. There is nothing engaging about the characters or the performances, the plot is excessively rote and familiar, and it has nothing to contribute to the ever-expanding genre. It’s inoffensive, but also not worth anybody’s time – from the comic book obsessives to the casual movie-goers just looking for some dumb big screen entertainment on a December weekend.
To be fair, Kraven The Hunter isn’t just another tired feature-length origin story… but it does make you sit through a 30-minute flashback sequence full of exposition. As a teenager, Sergei Kravinoff (Levi Miller) is the favored son of his powerful father, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), but he dismisses inheriting a criminal empire after nearly being killed by a lion during a hunting expedition and being brought back to life by a magic potion that imbues him with heightened senses, enhanced agility and superhuman strength.
Sixteen years later, he goes by the name Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), though the world knows him as The Hunter: a mythical vigilante with a list of criminal targets he aims to kill. Following an assassination in a Russian prison, Kraven finds himself targeted by Aleksei Sytsevich a.k.a. Rhino (Alessandro Nivola), a gangster who is aiming to enhance his power by taking down Nikolai Kravinoff and kidnapping the protagonist’s half-brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger).
Kraven The Hunter tries to do way too much with its story and is still extremely dull.
Kraven The Hunter could be called the most narratively competent of all of the movies in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (an extremely low bar), but it’s also still convoluted and full of contrivance. As far as the lead character’s motivations are concerned, the film is all over the place. He resents his father for his criminal enterprise – something that is exclusively told to us and never shown – but the story also piles on guilt for abandoning his brother, depression tied to his long-dead mother, conservationist principles, and a search for more of the serum that saved his life and gave him enhanced abilities. Rather than adding depth or complexity, it makes things feel muddled and scattershot, and it holds the work back from feeling satisfying in any way.
This issue extends to the supporting cast as well, as the movie makes an overt effort to introduce a number of characters from the comics and then doesn’t know what to do with them. The talents of Ariana de Bose, for example, are completely wasted, as she is introduced as Calypso, and her impact on the story is basically limited to just being the person who saves Sergei’s life with the magic serum (she becomes a lawyer as an adult and uses her firm’s resources to help Kraven find people… but this feels super redundant given the film’s touting of the titular character’s hunting skills). Dmitri is dead weight for the story, as it’s unclear why his kidnappers don’t just kill him when it’s clear that Nikolai isn’t going to pay a ransom – though the audience is also beaten over the head with repeated reminders of his mimicry skills (bluntly foreshadowing his future as comic book villain The Chameleon).
The most egregious example of this, however, is the introduction of Christopher Abbott as The Foreigner – a mercenary hired by Aleksei Sytsevich to go after Kraven who has a vague super power that involves hypnosis via eye contact. He is arguably the highlight of the film, as Abbott demonstrates a more captivating screen presence than anyone else in the cast, but there is also a complete lack of substance in the role.
Don’t expect anything special from Kraven The Hunter’s action and spectacle, even with the R-rating.
With respect to the talents of J.C. Chandor, whose great track record includes All Is Lost and A Most Violent Year, there isn’t much in the way of spectacle or vision to enhance the Kraven The Hunter experience either. Less than 24 hours after seeing the new film, I struggle to reflect on any standout set piece, as the work has no flair in its cinematography or specialness in its fight choreography. The creative freedom that comes with an R rating makes virtually no impact beyond spurts of digital blood (with exactly one exception during the runtime, there is no enhanced brutality to speak of), and visual effects leave a lot to be desired. It’s bad enough that all of the animals look super fake and the ultimate character design for Rhino is going to be ceaselessly mocked online, but there is also overt use of CGI body doubles whenever the main character does anything superhuman, and it both looks terrible and takes you out of the moment.
Potentially set to be the last feature in the failed cinematic experiment that is Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, Kraven The Hunter ultimately reminds me a lot of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom from around this time last year. It’s not an embarrassing franchise finale, as it’s far from the weakest entry in the canon (there’s actually an argument to be made that it’s the best), but it’s also a limp across the finish line that feels impossible to be passionate about in any respect. It’s neither a train wreck nor a surprise, and is destined to be entirely forgotten about by mid-February 2025 at the latest.