Picture this: filmmaker JC Chandor (“All Is Lost,” “A Most Violent Year”) directing a Marvel movie with Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the villain Kraven The Hunter, facing off against Spider-Man or Black Panther as written by Ryan Coogler. If you watch “Kraven The Hunter” and watch Taylor-Johnson’s commanding presence and what Chandor is capable of—as a filmmaker and a budding action director— you can imagine this idea being a worthwhile film with Kraven being a laudable successor to a ruthless and unmerciful Killmonger-type antagonist.
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Alas, while Taylor-Johnson possesses threatening and fearsome leading man villain qualities and Chandor is a fine director who really impressed and upped his action chops in the underrated “Triple Frontier,” this is a Sony-produced Marvel movie as written by the goons that work for Avi Arad—a cancerous blight who has never let go of “Spider-Man” film ownership and sadly has never been ousted (tellingly, Amy Pascal is not a producer here, and it shows; Matt Tolmach also helped lead the “Amazing Spider-Man” films, and the less said there, the better).
Because try as they may, Chandor and Taylor-Johnson, ‘Kraven’ is ultimately written by the unremarkable accredited trio of Richard Wenk (“The Equalizer 3”) and the duo of Art Marcum Matt Holloway (“Punisher: War Zone”) and this hunter-becomes-the-hunted cliched, formulaic, expository-riddled and hacky dialogued screenplay cannot be salvaged.
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That’s mean and unkind, but sheesh, there is actually potential here that’s totally squandered because of a good filmmaker and a great lead being saddled with a terrible script, replete with all the silly nonsense that seems to haunt Sony “Spider-Man” spin-offs, much like the unfortunate specter Arad’s films usually cast.
‘Kraven’ is mostly a dullard effort, but not for lack of trying. Chandor’s film begins with an action prologue—Kraven, an assassin, infiltrates a Russian jail, kills some powerful criminal on the inside, and escapes with superhuman feats of big-cat-like strength and agility—essentially to demonstrate his abilities.
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From there, the film time hops to a flashback of the past, a typical origin story. Young Sergei Kravinoff (a noticeable Levi Miller) and his younger brother Dmitri are always under the oppressive thumb of their asshole father, a Russian game hunter and crime lord Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe). Their mother has just died from a suicide, and Nikolia, being the heartless, cruel bastard he is, rebukes her memory contemptuously due to the inherent weakness he loathes. Constantly pushing the boys too hard during a lion hunt in Africa, Sergei is mauled nearly to death by a legendary king of the jungle but miraculously spared thanks to some voodoo potion given to him by a local girl named Calypso who received the elixir from her mystical grandmother (hardest of eye-rolls). Not fully comprehending what has happened to him, but realizing something is off, and powers are growing, young Sergei runs away from home, leaving the more innocent and sensitive Dmitri to live under the booth of his unforgiving father.
Flash forward to the present, and Kraven is back in assassin mode. Motivated by his estranged and complicated relationship with his horrible father, he’s like a murderous PETA, a conservationist and protector of the natural world, who kills those trophy hunters, poachers, and the oligarchs making a buck behind them. It’s a warped logic, but Kraven insists he has a code.
But Kraven needs more answers about those wealthy billionaires funding poachers and sets off on quests that lead him to both an adult Calypso (Ariana DeBose) and Aleksei Sytsevich aka the Rhino (Alessandro Nivola, at least chewing the scenery and having fun), a Russian mercenary and former colleague of Kraven’s father that has never forgiven him for being mean and hurting his feelings about being week some 20 odd years prior.
A world-class hunter, Aleksei knows he’s one of the bad guys on Kraven’s shitlist, so rather than wait to be found, he makes a pre-emptive stalking strike of his own and caught in the crosshairs is the now-adult younger brother Dmitri/Chameleon (a simperingly sweaty Fred Hechinger), a musician with his own nightclub that uses his affinity for mimicry—a talent revealed in those early coming-of-age flashbacks—to uncannily mimic the voice of famous singers to make an extra buck.
Kidnapped, Kraven soon races on a collision course with Rhino, who also calls in support from the super quick mercenary The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott), who held a lifelong jealousy of the hunter anti-heroes reputation.
So yes, it’s a mostly contrived family drama and superhero action film using the metaphor of those who are prey and those who are predators to tell a story about those who perceive themselves as Alpha males and the Beta males who struggle with their own insecurities and weaknesses, hoping to overcome them through unmerciful violence, and “I’ll show you, you jerk!” revenge.
If it all sounds hackneyed and cringe, well, it is; it’s a terrible story and an even worse screenplay. Furthermore, as charismatic and impressively swole and chiseled Aaron Taylor-Johnson is—he could have been the next Captain America-type if he hadn’t blown the opportunity in this film— Kraven, the character, like most of these Spider-Man spin-offs, doesn’t justify his own movie.
“Kraven The Hunter” is slightly interesting because J.C. Chandor works overtime to make this movie tolerable. It looks good and moody, is well shot by Ben Davis (“The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Eternals”) and features what, on paper, should be well-orchestrated and thrilling action sequences. Alas, most of them are hampered by a modest budget that renders all the CGI looking like crappy and rubbery-looking A.I. VFX, but you could foresee a version that looked good had he had another $100 million to play with.
Some of the story is just so unbearably hacky, too, in its reverse engineering. Fred Hechinger’s Dimitri character is supposed to become the Chameleon eventually, and the cornball, on-the-nose way they tee up with impersonator and copycat skills is just unintentionally laughable.
If blame resides on this usually impressive director, it’s the arrogance (or blind naiveté?) of thinking he could somehow turn this awful screenplay into something valuable. As much as there’s really a visible effort to make ‘Kraven’ the best version of what it can be, the deck is stacked against him: a terrible script, a dreadful story, producers with abysmal taste and a budget that isn’t enough for the all-too-crucial VFX of a superhero film (they leave the Rhino transformation to the end, and for good reason). It’s all admirable and, yet, ultimately, foolhardy.
There’s been recent talk that Sony is putting the brakes on “Spider-Man” spin-off movies for now; honestly, that’s more than warranted. Not only does it seem difficult to see how any of these peripheral anti-hero/villain movies would work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the “Spider-Man” films, but all of these pictures are just different degrees of awful (yes, including the “Venom” movies).
Frankly, Kevin Feige convincing Sony to lend their character to the MCU was the best thing that has ever happened to Sony, Spider-Man, and superhero comic book movie fans.
Even if Marvel is still on shaky ground, even the worst of what they produce is far above Sony’s misguided dreck. In a fair world to superheroes, Marvel Studios would own all of “Spider-Man.” Still, knowing it’s the only viable toehold they have in the lucrative superhero genre, you’d likely have to pry it out of Tom Rothman’s dead hands before they gave it up.
To that end, it’s also amusing to remember that at one point, after the financial success of “Venom”—which was still horrendous but made money— an arrogant Sony threatened to pull Spider-Man from the MCU, thinking they no longer needed their more creative, more experienced partners. If Kevin Feige is the best thing that ever happened to Spider-Man movies, then success (and the persistence of Avi Arad’s involvement) has been the worst (btw, if you’re wondering about interconnectivity to Spider-Man, there are a few minor ones, a Daily Bugle appearance, small references but that’s it).
Chandor and Aaron Taylor Johnson deserve better, frankly, but they also both read this screenplay and still signed on. They push beyond the boundaries that have been set up for them, but they can only do so much because a bright and shiny polished turd is still mostly a turd, no matter how much campy lion mane costuming you try and bedazzle it with. [C]
“Kraven The Hunter” opens in theaters December 13, 2024, via Sony Pictures.