Kraven: The Hunter (2024) review

 
    KRAVEN: THE HUNTER is a perfectly cromulent movie. It is a film that is not nearly as bad as MORBIUS or MADAME WEB. It is a film. It has a three act structure. There are characters within it. There is (sort of) character development. They have conflicts. Conflicts that are resolved. There is action (of a sort). It is truly, yes, a film. If you think I am struggling for things to say, you would also be right.

    This film is incredibly rote, paint by the numbers, and not even so bad that it’s good. Morbius was incredibly bad. So bad that it had several very laughable scenes. Madame Web wasted the movie potential of not one but four Spider-Women, five if you count the fact Dakota Johnson should have been playing Jessica Drew.

    Kraven the Hunter…is.

    The funny thing is, it’s not a bad Catman movie. If this had been about Thomas Blake from THE SECRET SIX and they’d gotten Gail Simone to punch up the script then I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. Thomas Blake got re-envisioned as a “rich kid who becomes Tarzan antihero” well before the stab at making Kravin into it.

    However, this IS about Sergei Kravinoff and we get a white-washed version of one of Spider-Man’s villains because given access to the entirety of Spider-Man’s supporting cast, they couldn’t think of someone to make a superhero movie out of despite the Prowler, Black Cat, Silver Sable, or even Ben Reilly existing. Mind you, we have the Spider-Verse so it’s really just the live action films that are suffering.

    If you’re looking for fidelity to Kraven the Hunter from the comics, look elsewhere. Kraven is a character with a fascinating history as he was widely considered to be a joke for most of his runtime until the super-dark, KRAVEN’S LAST HUNT that wrapped up his character for decades like THE NIGHT GWEN STACY DIED did for Norman Osborn. We got to meet his ridiculous collection of children and his resurrected version that befriended Squirrel Girl but I’ve always liked Kraven. He’s one-note but he’s also a bonafide psychopath and if you can ignore the silliness of comics, I think he’s a good villain.

    This movie is about a younger Kraven (Aaron Taylor Johns), who is the son of a Russian mob boss, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), and brother of Dmitri Kravinoff (Fred Hechinger). While hunting with his dad in Africa, Kraven is wounded by a lion and healed by a local medicine woman’s daughter, Calypso (Ariana Debose). He gains the power of a lion and becomes an international mercenary and hitman that goes after people associated with his dad. Eventually, a Russian with mysterious powers nicknamed “The Rhino” (Alessandro Nivola), kidnaps Dmitri and Kraven has to go rescue him. There’s also the Foreigner (Christopher Abbott), who has the power of temporarilly stopping time (or maybe he’s speeding up in bursts).

    Movie happens.

    Fidelity wise to the comics, it’s not very faithful but I’ve seen worse. Calypso is Kraven’s lover, Dmitri AKA The Chameleon is his brother, and the Rhino becomes the Rhino. They even namedrop Miles Warren. I mean, the Rhino isn’t the dumb muscle of the comics. Calypso isn’t a magical priestess but a lawyer who can do a little magic either. But I actually believe the people who wrote the script have READ comics before. Possibly even Spider-Man issues with Kraven in them. They at least consulted his Wikipedia page. Damned by faint praise as this may be, it’s better than some depictions.

    It’s fine-ish. It’s also an incredibly safe movie. Kraven isn’t a villain. He’s a hero who kills horrible evil people and does nothing worse than Jack Reacher does on a Tuesday. Calypso isn’t a villain. No one has any real menace and even the Rhino seems like a fairly decent fellow who doesn’t want to hurt Dmitri. Russell Crowe is playing the only real scumbag in the movie and all I can think is that he would have been perfect for a Spider-Man movie where he plays an aging Kraven, the kind who might have adult children, and wants to die in one final battle before he completely loses his edge. You know, the plot of the recent Spider-Man 2 game.

    It’s not a great movie but I was able to finish it in one sitting. I hesitate to call the movie boring but it is incredibly low energy. Kraven is effectively invincible, the CGI is obvious, and any edge the character might have as a villain protagonist is gone. So, yeah, it’s not something I recommend but it’s not terrible. However, if you don’t get a seratonin high by pointing and going, “That’s from the comics!” then it probably is terrible.

5/10

Available here