Kraven the Hunter info:
Director: J.C. Chandor
Writer: Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola and Russell Crowe
Hello and welcome to another week here at 1guysmindlessmoviereviews.com. We are still in the middle of a hot streak of big releases as we roll closer to the end of the year. I’ve been lucky enough to partake in a wide-release movie for four straight weeks now and I’m having a blast. Maybe I can continue with “Moana 2” next week. Then that will bring us right to the end of the year. Anyway, let’s not hurry time away too fast so we can discuss this week’s selection… “Kraven the Hunter”, the latest entry in the Sony/Marvel on-screen collaboration. There is quite a bit to get to with this, so let’s get the spoiler warning out of the way now. If you haven’t seen this yet and don’t want to be spoiled, you may want to head to my homepage here to see what else I have in store first, but please come back here to read this when you are ready.
I have to say right out of the gate that I went into this with really low expectations. If we are being honest with ourselves, the “Spider-Man Universe” from Sony has been a mixed bag, with mostly lows. Even though I am a fan of Venom, all three of those movies are less than what they could be. It gets even worse from there with the awful “Morbius” and somehow even more awful “Madame Web”. So, my first thought was that this wouldn’t be as good as the Venom trilogy, but better than the other two. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised. It was far from being a great movie (it had many issues), but it was also entertaining and enjoyable to watch.
Like a good origin story, we get to see the title character showing off his skills and abilities right out of the gate, then slide gently into the backstory of how he got his powers. When young Sergei Kravinoff (Taylor-Johnson) is on a hunting trip with his father Nikolai (Crowe) and brother Dmitri (Hechinger), he is mauled by a lion and technically dies for three minutes. Thankfully, Calypso Ezili (DeBose) is close by and gives him a drink of a special potion that her grandmother gave her. That not only brought him back but mixed with the lion’s blood, it gave him the abilities that he has now.
Fast-forward back to present day and he has re-invented himself as Kraven the Hunter and has an almost legendary status tied to his name as he hunts down and stops the criminals who kill animals only to take their horns to sell as well as the other groups associated with them. He has an ever-growing list of people he must stop… including Aleksei Sytsevich (Nivola) who used to work with his father and is now known as the Rhino as he starts to take over all the crime groups in the area. As he does that, Kraven works with Calypso to hunt down him and others. This is a good time to mention that they wasted DeBose’s character here. They could have done so much for her and other than a timely shot with an arrow later in the film her purpose basically didn’t exist. In fact, we don’t even see her at the end of the movie. I feel like the ball was dropped here.
Another place where the story fell short was in the role of The Foreigner (played by Christopher Abbott). He shows up without any backstory of where he came from and he has some sort of ability to move quickly without people noticing him and that is never explained. After a few scenes with him, he catches up to Kraven and then meets his untimely end at the hands of Calypso (as I mentioned above). The one constant throughout everything is Kraven trying to save his kidnapped brother and their dad and his unwavering need for power. Nikolai wants his son, Sergei, to take over the family business one day even though Dmitri was the one who stayed home when they were younger.
Like most comic book movies, this one eventually ends up in a huge battle out in the middle of nowhere. Other than the good fight scene between Kraven and Rhino, there isn’t much going on here, and ended up being anti-climactic. Despite some glaring holes, most of the movie wasn’t that bad. It had some good action, some internal family conflicts, and some nice shooting locales. I was a bit let down by the lack of tie-ins to the other properties. Unless I overlooked some less obvious clues, the Daily Bugle is the only reference that I spotted to the Spider-Man universe.
Overall, this had a lot of problems that could have easily been avoided but managed to still be somewhat entertaining and Aaron Taylor-Johnson has turned himself into quite the action star these days. It falls in line exactly where I thought it would. Venom is better, but Morbius and Madame Web are far below it. I’m not sure what the future holds for these franchises, but there may still be some life in them at some point down the road. In the meantime, this outing will get a 6 out of 10… even though the 6 may be pushing it a bit.
That’s it for this week’s mindless movie review. Have you had a chance to catch this movie yet? What are your thoughts on how this fits into the Spider-Man universe? Where would put this in line with the others? Are you impressed with Taylor-Johnson’s action skills?
Thanks, and tune in next week for another mindless movie review of some sort.
