Kraven the Hunter and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by JC Chandor
The Sony Spider-Verse has been a joke since its inception; arguably even before that, as people were groaning at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 which teased a cavalcade of Spider-Foes for future installments. You could argue that it hasn’t been a disaster for Sony’s bottom line the Venom movies were reliably bankable, but aside from the goofy fun of seeing Tom Hardy arguing with himself, there just wasn’t anything to make this feel like more than a cash-in on a brand they had a tenuous grasp on in the first place. With all of that, it comes as no surprise to find this latest entry going over like a lead balloon, especially with Sony cutting its legs out from under it by announcing the end of its Spider-Verse right before it could hit theaters. Still, is this a case of everyone’s frustration with the Spider-Verse spilling over onto a perfectly alright movie, or is this the perfect capstone to such a cavalcade of cinematic failure? Let’s find out!!
In the heart of Siberia, there lives a man whose day job is hitman extraordinaire and fights for the animals of the world in his free time. He goes by Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but his true name is Sergei, and he’s the son of an infamous Russian mobster (Russell Crowe) who is starting to lose his grip on power as new players are making moves on his territory. One such competitor is Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) who takes the bold step of kidnapping Sergei’s brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) in an attempt to draw out the infamous assassin while also staking a claim as the head honcho of the underworld. With the help of Calypso (Ariana DeBose) whose family’s secret recipe for super solider serum turned Sergei into Kraven many years ago, Sergei must race against the clock to do what he does best; hunt those who deserve to be hunted. Can Sergei find his brother before he becomes the latest victim of this never ending crime war? What tricks does Aleksei have up his sleeve to deal with the mighty hunter, who is the only one that could threaten to his operation? See, I always saw Kraven as the guy who just wants to mount Spider-Man’s head to his wall, but I guess we’ve all got a little family drama in our backstory.
As I’m sure was the case with a lot of people, I was so uninterested in seeing this movie that I didn’t even bother looking up a trailer in the months leading up to its release, and Sony didn’t seem all too interested in selling it either given that it might have popped up once during my many trips to the theater. It’s a shame because once you get past all the Sony skullduggery and simply sit down to watch the movie; it actually kicks a fair amount of ass. It’s no masterpiece by any stretch, but for the Sony Spider-Verse, it’s practically The Dark Knight. Heck, I would argue that for all the praise Joker got for being a standalone cinematic experience which happens to be connected to a comic book character, that this is far and away the superior version of that. For all of Joker’s gesturing towards deep themes and nuanced characters amid an oppressively bleak narrative, this actually has some genuinely solid writing behind it and a cast of characters who are significantly fleshed out and memorably acted. Russell Crowe in particular is chewing up the scenery with a comically bad Russian accent, and yet he’s a terrifying presence whenever he’s on-screen; especially when paired up with Fred Hechinger whose timid and effete performance brings a lot of humanity to a cast that is otherwise filled to the brim with oppressively Stoic dudes. It has a flair for the dramatic, and not just in terms of its extremely serious characters talking about a dude with animal powers. There are some genuinely intense and gory action scenes that don’t shy away from the violence being inflicted on all the characters, and it certainly puts the PG-13 Venom movies to shame. I can see fans of the character not being too pleased with the depiction here as he’s more of an Anti-Hero animal rights kind of guy rather than a scumbag Big Game Hunter, but given how well the movie turned out with this depiction of him, I think it was worth muddying the canon a bit to get us here.
Now I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself here as I’m not about to name this the best movie of the year; especially when we already had a much better hunting movie in the form of Hundreds of Beavers. There’s an inherent silliness to all of it that I found enjoyable and campy, but feels at odds with the rest of the movie’s tone, which strives to keep things grounded and somber. This is great for the characters and dialogue which sparkle in the way that a solid knock-off of latter-day Ridley Scott should, but bridging the gap between gritty crime drama and Hunter-Man wrestling cougars is no easy task, and it can feel a bit uneven when it tries to do both at the same time. Most of this unevenness can be traced to a single character, as Calypso is stuck having to wear many unfortunate hats throughout. It’s almost a joke how much of this movie relies on her making completely ridiculous decisions and inexplicably tying loose ends together; not to mention the terrible exposition and banal dialogue that Ariana DeBose is forced to spout. It’s a shame that all this got dumped on her while everyone else got to do their own thing in fun little scenes of schlocky crime drama, and given her prominence in the story, it does drag things down significantly.
Still, the movie delivers where it needs to when it comes to the action and machismo-fueled angst. I’d compare it to mid-budget streaming hits like Extraction and Rebel Ridge, though I think a more apt comparison, and one that in some ways was the progenitor to these types of action thrillers, is Punisher: War Zone. Both movies feel like aberrations that snuck through the studio system with a bunch of weird ideas and copious amounts of gore. Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s turn here is the kind of gruff action charisma that gave Ray Stevenson steady paychecks for the rest of his tragically short life, and the film puts it to great use in its numerous action scenes which are solid across the board while almost managing to pull off Kraven’s absurd superpowers. Much like the first Deadpool movie, the action remains as grounded as possible so that the super powered action star can shine through, but there are moments where it comes off as too silly; especially for this film’s darker tone. The villains are similarly getting a pass here, with decent performances and interesting gimmicks that veer a little far into outright comedy by the time they fully manifest their powers. Alessandro Nivola is just enigmatic enough that you can never feel certain of his motivation throughout, and Christopher Abbott is a lot of fun as an assassin with a power that goes unexplained but is dangerously effective. Maybe a little more character work on the latter and a better looking final fight for the former would have brought this up to the level of Punisher: War Zone as neither are as instantly iconic as Dominic West with a bad face lift, but they get the job done and are just another piece of the puzzle that makes up this surprisingly engaging B-Movie.
I don’t know if it’s utterly tragic or delightfully bittersweet that Sony’s vision of a Rogue’s Gallery cinematic universe finally found an identity for itself right as the curtains were being drawn, but it made for a darn good time at the theater, and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys the occasional low budget action film made by enthusiastic fans of the genre. Perhaps Sony didn’t need to spend over a hundred million dollars to make something you’d casually flip to on Tubi or Pluto TV, but I guess that still puts them one step ahead of DC, who were willing to spend over two hundred million on a dull courtroom drama starring the Joker. I’ll take a fumbling attempt at making Eastern Promises with comic book characters over that nonsense any day.
The Reviewers Unite 