Movie Review: Kraven The Hunter

 WARNING: The following review contains Strong Language. Readers discretion is advised.

(sigh) Hey guys… Im Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review…

You know… As a fan of Spider-Man, I’ve always wanting to see something new when they’re giving us a movies involving villains and others, especially I was expecting to giving us another new role of Spider-Man, but boy was I wrong…! When they gave us the third and final one that same out this year. (groan) I feel like im not ready for this…!

“Kraven The Hunter” is a 2024 Superhero film that was directed by J. C. Chandor, produced by Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and David Householter, and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway.

The idea of the movie wasn’t originated as a standalone film, but rather a supposed plans to having Kraven into Spider-Man movies before MCU or Sony’s own universe. Around after developing or releasing Spider-Man 3, our old friend Sam Raimi wanted to have Kraven on Spider-Man 4 as a villain, despite it was supposed to having The Vulture, but as I said in my review of Spider-Man 3, it was canned. After the release of The Amazing Spider-Man, Marc Webb was planned to have Kraven either in the sequel or a tease to having Sinister Six in the end via cliffhanger, but because The Amazing Spider-Man 2 got flopped, it was thrown out too. After MCU introduced Spider-Man in “Captain America: Civil War” and his first MCU standalone film “Spider-Man: Homecoming”, Sony would like to have Kraven in MCU, but they changed their mind to bringing him into their own cinematic universe to give Kraven as standalone film, but had been delayed to be released due to the Hollywood Labors Strike. Even though when they were planned during the starting of their cinematic universe with Venom, they were thinking that they wanted make an adaptation of “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, but decided to ditched it for focusing on his origin, at least what the writer Richard Wenk was hoped for when he stepped in to write his own take of Kraven following his release of “The Equalizer 2”.

But alas, this movie is released the same year as Venom: The Last Dance and Madame Web, this year was an absolute Shit Show that they’ve gave us a very bad results. In fact, a week before I released my review, Sony was announced that, because of the financial Fuck Ups and delays from the aforementioned labors strike, Kraven the Hunter is going to be the last film in Sony’s own Spider-Man Universe. That’s only Six films in their cinematic universe, this is even less and pretty weak to bad compare to DC Extended Universe that it has 16 movies before WB and DC Studio rebooted their cinematic universe, but I digress.

But after watching it… (groans) I still feel like im dreaded to talking about this final FU film from Sony’s Fuck Up take of their own cinematic universe…!

Lets find out…!

The Story

While il give a credit to make something new, but the execution is anything but…!

After giving us a moment when our main hero, Sergei Kravinoff escapes the prison to going back to the wild in Russia, the movie brings us to the origin in teenage years. After the mother took her own life, Sergei, his brother Dmitri and his father Nikolai are setting themselves up for drug trafficking. But when they’re on a hunting trip in Africa, Sergei sees a lion, he tries to shoot it, but refuses in concern, but got threatened by a gunshot by Nikolai, causing the lion bites Sergei and carrying him out of nowhere, laying and dying. But it wouldn’t be until we meet a girl from Africa named Calypso who hears the lion attack and Sergei’s dying to healing him with her serum (that was created by her grandma before she passed away), along giving her card of Tarot to him before he was rescued, which not only he’s survived, but also giving him animalistic powers like see far away, speed, agility and skilled fighting, hunting and camouflage. Once he comes back home to see his father and brother, but unfortunately, due to being having enough of families criminal activity and seeing a display of lion’s head, he left on his own to be sanctuary (in other words, he goes into a mix between Tarzan and Rambo). Fast Forward to 16 years later, Sergei, now renamed as “Kraven The Hunter” is now a lone vigilante in the forest,killing anybody on his way for ransom. But after reuniting with his brother Dmitri for his birthday, he leaves outside (because… He’s distracted from air vent to catch a fresh air??), but upon waking up, his brother was captured by a group of mercenaries, run by Aleksei Sytsevich (aka Rhino) and his partner as Foreigner. But after getting rejected by his father for ransom, he looks after Calypso (now as lawyer) to working together to not only save Dmitri, but also facing against Aleksei once and for all.

Now, the story sounds basic as you can get that its all about saving Kraven’s brother from the group of mercenaries, but alas, the writing, not only it just came off as too basic, but it was nothing but both boring and a mess, since it tried too hard to giving us a developments from either our heroes, the message or such, but most of them are either lackluster, no effort and lazy. One of which is a subplot that Kraven gets a cheap advice from his father Nikolai to “control his fear”. Oh gee, a superhero movie about control your fear? I never heard that one before… What’s worst is that despite we like to see Kraven vs Rhino and Foreigner, but writing is unfortunately is such a mess that instead of two, they gave us three with the inclusion of Nikolai to have a dysfunctional relationship between Kraven, Nikolai and Dmitri, especially cheap from name-calling coward based on being into fear, along with kid vs father is also been overused since Star Wars. But of course, I kinda feels like they wanna add a teeny tiny humors, but those “jokes” are barely there with zero chuckle for giving to me.

The story is boringly generic, the writing is a complete mess with cheap message, overcrowd villains and nowhere fun from get-go…!

The Presentation

The movie’s budget costs estimated $100M to $130M, yet another above cheap budget, but by looks of it, it feels like the same results as Madame Web.

For starter, the filming locations are pretty cool, the movie takes place on both London, England, Russia and Turkey. The first part is no stranger that they filmed in actual, London, which looks beautiful to see. However, the filming depiction of Russia is in Iceland, which I think its a rightful place, cause its a very long story how Russia has become today. As for Turkey, for my guessing they filmed in Glasgow, Scotland. Then again, due to countries’… Political reasons, but they filming locations for their depiction are actually pretty nice looking.

As for the traditional design, it seems to be rather minimal we have. Kraven’s costume appearance, while we never have a similar appearance from the comic, but I like this, looking him more like a wild anti-hero in animalistic theme weapons like knifes, darts and maybe even arrow.

Speaking of weapons, the action scenes are good for say the least, those action scenes are like the only good things in this movie. The best way to describing the action scenes, they’re like if you mix Tarzan for animalistic fighting style and Rambo for the use of melee and camouflage. Sure, its not perfect, but they’re good to watch, especially we may like to see Kraven either doing parkour from the forest and the buildings or even chasing cars in bare feet (talk about giving him a “Fist with your toes”).

But then came to the elephant in the room, its the digital effects. Much like two previous films in this year, the effects are just as either mediocre or just laughably bad. There ranging from fake blood in some action scenes (I feel like they’ve never learned from Venom’s third film) or even Rhino’s transformation form, the latter is just so bad that he probably made me laugh how dumb and nearly ugly he looks. Yes I know he’s meant to be some kind of experiment from the serum, but come on, do they really have to make him look that bad?? But don’t even get me started with The Chameleon appearance, but I won’t give you a spoiler, but when I saw his form, it also made laugh from its stupidity. Like… This fucking movie, man…!

While some traditional designs, the filming and the action scenes are pretty good, but good lord, the digital effects are just so bad that its either cringe or hilariously bad. On second thought, its probably both.

The Characters

With badly written in the story and such, its safe to say a lot of characters are probably being one dimensional, for the most. And not to mention, a very minimal of characters we have here.

Lets start with our titular protagonist, Kraven The Hunter, aka Sergei Kravinoff (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, aka Kick-Ass), he’s a vigilante hunter in the wild for having animalistic abilities. I find him to be a fairly descent one, even if in this movie, he’s more like, again, a mix of Tarzan and Rambo for being an apex predator and much against from his father. While il give a credit for Aaron’s performance and he looks pretty jacked up (though not as greater than Jackman’s Wolverine in Deadpool and Wolverine, but he’s more of typical ruthless bloodthirsty vigilante in his frustration against his father, good performance, but not helping from a weak script.

Next, Calypso (played by Ariana DeBose, aka Asha from Disney’s Wish), a voodoo priestess, a lawyer and Kraven’s love interest that she’s responsible of reviving Kraven with serum, along with giving him abilities. She’s there to giving us a plot convenience about her family and creation of serum to Kraven, but she’s just there for details to our hero, that’s about it for her one dimensional appearance. While Ariana did a fine performance, but again, she’s just weak in her role.

After that, we have Dmitri Kravinoff (played by Fred Hechinger), he’s Kraven’s brother who’s said to be a “Master of Disguise”. Yes, I know he’s meant to be The Chameleon, but alas in this movie, not only he’s just his father’s second-in-command and even a dude in distress for being captured by Aleskei’s group. While il give a credit for Fred’s performance, cause I think he had a good time, but once again, the script killed his potential.

Next, we have two main villains, Aleksei Sytsevich, aka Rhino (played by Alessandro Nivola) and Foreigner (played by Christopher Abbott), these guys are the main villain for their capturing Dmitri for their… Reasons that we probably didn’t know. But I find them rather mixed, they have potentials, but they felt flat, ranging from Aleksei being silly villain with his serum to keeping himself in human form while has a transforming into the dumbest looking form of Rhino ever. As for Foreigner, I find him okay at best, he’s just a cold blooded assassin who’s hired with his eye that gives him the ability to hypnotizing anybody on his way, not bad, despite giving us another poorly digital effects. Once again, while il give an appreciation of their performances, but Nivola’s performance is just forced to make him over the top that he makes Jesse Eisenburg’s Lex Luther looks tame, while Chris Abbott is fine at best. They’re both fine, but, im gonna say again, the scrip and the effects are equally bad and cringe together.

And lastly, we have Nikolai Kravinoff (played by Russell Crowe, aka Jor-El from Man of Steel, aka Maximus from Gladiator, aka Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder, aka… Pretty much any films if you’re familiar), he’s the father and the crime lord for drug trafficking to rewarding ransom, along with possibly bring the dread to Kraven ever since he was attacked by a lion. I get they wanna make something new to having Kraven having a feud with his father, but alas, not because Nikolai is such a forgettable villain for being an evil father cliché, but the movie is suffered with so many villains for being the “one hero versus more than one villain”, it feels like they took the same problem as Spider-Man 3, but unlike Spider-Man 3, it was very poorly executed for poor character development and cheap excuse of high profile appearance like Russell Crowe. Again, like some, I’ve nothing against Russell, great actor, but its just when he showing up, they gave him a very weak writing and his minor appearances.

With bad writing of this movie, this movie is no stranger that many characters in this movie are both underdeveloped, poorly executed and even cliché.

And now for my final opinion of this Fucking movie…!

Overall, Kraven The Hunter is pretty much the final “Fuck You” from Sony’s own cinematic universe.

While it has potential that I kinda like, such as the action scenes and Kraven himself and maybe even Foreigner. But like the previous Sony’s Spider-Man Cinematic Universe, everything else is just broken down Cluster Fucks with Shit writing, lame characters, overused clichés, crowded villains that are Shitty written and a horrendous digital effects.

This is definitely not hard to see why this is the last film of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe that they tried WAY too hard to be like MCU, but Sony are just WAY too stupid to make it look good, but in reality, they’re just clowning around with bad movies and box-office flips that it makes DCEU looked tamer. Sure the Venom movies are “meh”, but everything else are nothing but absolute Shit Shows! Especially this year is already doomed when they gave us Madame Web, and this one came out is probably the reason why Sony should give up and focus on a goddamn Spider-Verse or hell, maybe even give some a second chance with Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 or even Marc Webb’s The Amazing spider-Man 3, but in reality, Sony is pretty much Fucking around at this point…!

So folks, after watching this, im gonna say again, do me a favor and learn from my mistakes, just don’t even bother to watching this, its not worth it for how shit this movie really it. Or better yet, don’t even bother of watching six Sony’s own cinematic universe, again, while Venom is okay, but all of their movies are mediocre to awful. Like, Sony really needs to Fuck off to focus on other universe instead of what we have…!

For that reason, im gonna give this one a 2/10, along with earning the Dumpster Fire of FAILURE, have some shame of Failures you have there, Sony. Again, they really need to Fuck Off…!

So this ends of this stupid Shit Show, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.