In the years since Spider-Man began teaming up with the Avengers in the MCU, Sony has held tightly to its grip on the web-slinger’s film rights, creating an endless array of spin-offs focused exclusively on his villains—with no Spider-Man in sight. This cinematic universe has delivered some extremely low points and virtually no highs. (Yes, there’s a sizable fan base for the Venom trilogy. I’m not one of them.) Earlier this week, The Wrap reported that Sony may be pulling the plug on its Spider-less universe, with Kraven the Hunter potentially marking the franchise’s final entry. If that’s the case, Kraven leaves behind the same legacy as its predecessors: a complete waste of time and money.
Kraven the Hunter follows Sergei Kravinoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. In an extended flashback, we see Sergei’s origins as he and his half-brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) grow up under the abusive shadow of their father, Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a ruthless poacher and crime lord. During a hunting expedition, Sergei is nearly mauled to death by a lion. A combination of lion blood entering his wounds and a potion from a young priestess named Calypso gives Sergei enhanced senses, super strength, and agility. Rejecting his father’s ways, Sergei flees from London to Russia, renames himself Kraven, and becomes a vigilante known as “The Hunter,” targeting criminals worldwide.
Fast-forward to the present, and Kraven finds himself on the trail of The Rhino (Alessandro Nivola), a rival of Nikolai who has kidnapped Dmitri and possesses the ability to turn his skin into a near-invulnerable hide.
“Kraven the Hunter is, at its core, just plain dull.”
To get the good out of the way: Aaron Taylor-Johnson isn’t completely terrible as Kraven. It makes no sense why a Russian-born, England-raised character would have an American accent – especially when Taylor-Johnson himself is English –, but at the very least he (and his abs) have got enough screen presence to where he comes across more unscathed than the rest of the cast. Also, Kraven the Hunter’s R rating led to a pretty good kill involving a bear trap that got a solid “oooh” from myself and the audience. But that’s where my positivity ends.
Kraven the Hunter is, at its core, just plain dull. Kraven’s main conflicts with Nikolai lead to overly long scenes of stilted exposition, made worse by trying not to laugh at Russell Crowe’s cartoonish Russian accent. Whatever chemistry is supposed to exist between Kraven and Dmitri is completely absent. Even the promise of Kraven tearing people apart, courtesy of the R rating, fails to make Kraven the Hunter more exciting. All it adds are slightly bloodier action scenes and a few characters dropping f-bombs occasionally. J.C. Chandor, known for Triple Frontier and A Most Violent Year, is usually a solid director, but his work here—paired with a script by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway—feels dead on arrival.
The entire film wastes its overqualified cast, with Ariana DeBose and Christopher Abbott bearing the brunt of it. DeBose, as the adult Calypso, has virtually nothing to do. Now reimagined as a lawyer who ends up entangled with Kraven, her character is so flat that calling her one-dimensional would be generous. Worse, she’s subjected to some of the worst ADR I’ve heard this year—second only to Madame Web. In one scene, DeBose and Kraven are talking near a plane engine, but her voice sounds as though she’s merely trying to be heard over a DJ at a party.
“Kraven’s main conflicts with Nikolai lead to overly long scenes of stilted exposition, made worse by trying not to laugh at Russell Crowe’s cartoonish Russian accent.”
Abbott’s case is even more frustrating. He plays Z-list Spider-Man villain The Foreigner, an assassin hired by Rhino who can hypnotize people by making eye contact, counting to three, and then shooting them outside their line of sight. Abbott, one of the best actors working today, is reduced to a glorified henchman whose ability is essentially just flanking.
As for The Rhino, Alessandro Nivola hams it up, but even his sequences fail to entertain. His full transformation into the Rhino from the comics marks the point where Kraven the Hunter’s already poor visual effects take an even steeper dive. It culminates in yet another weightless, stakes-free CGI brawl, rounding out a thoroughly disappointing experience.
Here’s the thing about these “Spider-Man without Spider-Man” movies: the reason none of them work—including Kraven—is because these characters are only truly compelling within the framework of Spider-Man. Take Spidey out of the equation, and they simply fall flat. Kraven isn’t even a particularly popular character outside of the Kraven’s Last Hunt comic arc, which, again, requires Spider-Man to exist in the first place. Repeatedly teasing Spider-Man-related elements while knowing he will never interact with any of these characters isn’t intriguing—it’s just frustrating.
This isn’t even factoring in Sony’s insistence on forcing stardom on mostly B- and C-list characters. For example, Dmitri (the future Chameleon, a classic Spider-Man villain) has his powers of mimicry teased throughout Kraven the Hunter by doing perfect impressions of other people, but this never contributes meaningfully to the story. Instead, it’s left as a setup for a sequel we already know will never happen.
All that said, Kraven the Hunter isn’t as aggressively miserable as Morbius, nor is it the hilarious disaster that Madame Web seems destined to be. Instead, it’s content to be utterly lifeless. While there are a few unintentionally funny moments, the movie as a whole is so dull that it’s not even worth sitting through.
If this is truly the end of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, then so long, SSU. We hardly liked ye.
