There is, quite literally, not a single person on this planet whose decision on whether or not to see Kraven the Hunter will be based on a review. This is a rather freeing notion for me, a person who got to see the film early in exchange for a few words about it, good or bad. Since I hold no duty to any reader, I can pretty much format this review however I like. I am permitted to do whatever I want over the next few hundred words, and as a result, you’ll probably enjoy this piece more than something more serious.
(Hi Dave. I’m always thinking of you when I write something silly or negative about a film).
That said, I don’t have much to say about Kraven the Hunter that could be considered negative. Not because the movie is that good, but because there’s nothing to say about it that hasn’t already been said about the SSU thus far (that’s the Sony Spider-Man Universe, for the uninitiated).
Wait, I lied. I will say this: What the funk is going on with the title? It should have a colon. Kraven COLON the Hunter. As it currently stands it’s called Kraven the Hunter. Not grammatically inaccurate, but as a title it ends up feeling undercooked in the same way that the title for Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw does over in Europe, where it’s simply titled Fast & Furious Hobbs & Shaw.
Is one fast and the other furious? Are they both fast & furious? Does it matter since the movie totally blows? These are big questions, and they’re best left up to the suits in Washington, who are currently acting rather tight-lipped about DroneStorm ‘24.
I digress.
Anywho, Kraven the Hunter is, by its very branding, connected to the two Amazing Spider-Man movies and the three Venom movies, as well as Morbius, and Madame Web, which are only considered movies by the loosest definition of the term. Your mileage may vary on how much you enjoy these films, but one thing we can all agree on is that there’s simply no way a sturdy cinematic universe will ever be built from them. The MCU pulled off the whole universe thing and then tried to expand for too long, and now no one even wants it anymore because it sucks. Keeping up with it is too much work in the name of leisure, and no amount of perceived sunken cost will outweigh the actual cost of going to the movie theater, a place that continues to be overrun by the worst patrons on the planet while descending into turnkey operations where just about every aspect of the experience is inferior to watching a film at home.
So no, the whole “but wait until you see what comes next” days are behind us. None of us have any money and we don’t care about what cool stuff is in store with us if we just wait for the next one, and the next one, and the one after that.
And it’s from this angle that I was able to enjoy Kraven the Hunter. Unlike every preceding film in the SSU, this one does not rely on any connective tissue and actually manages to work on its own. You don’t need to know anything about anything to get what it’s going for, which is good, because nobody has heard of Kraven the Hunter before (and if you have, shut up, dork, you know what I mean).
So who is Kraven? He’s a guy who, after being attacked by a lion as a teen, is given a potion created by a Magical Black Woman™️ that gives him the ability to climb things, kinda sorta communicate with animals, and make an entire theater of critics gasp when he removes his shirt to reveal no fewer than 750 abdominal muscles.
His dad, Russian Crowe (it’s Russell Crowe doing a Russian accent), is a dick, and his brother (2024’s Fred Hechinger) is a bit softer than Russian Crowe would like, which is a thing. Also Ariana DeBose is there as the grown-up of version of the granddaughter of the Magical Black Woman™️ who created the super juice that turned Kraven into a webless Spider-Man.
Oh and Alessandro Nivola, who is always the best, plays Rhino, a classic character who was featured in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but was presumably a different character since he was played by Paul Giamatti in a metal rhino gundam suit and this one is more of a biological thing. You don’t care. No one cares. This isn’t something to care about. And since Kraven the Hunter is not interested in expressly connecting itself to the other movies in this universe, we can move on.
Basically, Kraven makes a living hunting down and taking out bad guys, and this time around the bad guys may be connected to his dad, and Rhino is all like “I wanna do bad things” and Kraven is like “no, you’re not allowed to do that, please enjoy my impossible abs.”
No one cares about the story. Least of all, you. Let’s move past it.
Director J.C. Chandor keeps everything visible, which is more than many films of Kraven’s ilk can claim, while also employing some very impressive stunt work. Overall, the action is solid. If this movie came out in 2002 we’d probably all love it. And in a vacuum it’s exciting enough to exist as a film out of time and still be enjoyable.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is charismatic/buff enough to make it work, and Nivola can’t not be the most interesting thing on any screen, so that’s nice. DeBose, however, can’t seem to figure out what to do, and delivers more unintentional groaners than most actors do across a whole career. It’s not her fault, really. She’s not given much to do.
That’s really all there is to it. Kraven is an enjoyable night at the movies that requires very little thought on the part of the audience. There are no post-credit sequences to speak of, marking the first time in a long time that a superhero movie ended and was actually over. And that’s nice, because sometimes it’s okay when things just end.
Directed by J.C. Chandor
Written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, based on characters created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Russian Crowe, Ariana DeBose, 2024’s Fred Hechinger.
Rated R, 127 minutes
