Here’s yet another attempt by Sony to drain every last dime they can from their Spider-Man adjacent properties. Thanks to the diminishing returns of Morbius, Madame Web, and now Kraven the Hunter, my Spider-Sense tells me this may be their last pseudo-Spidey venture for a while.
Like the other live-action Sony Spider-Verse movies, the filmmakers take a traditional Marvel villain and spin them into more of an antihero. This one makes the most sense as they take Kraven, a man known for hunting big game in the comics and flip the script, so he now defends wildlife from illegal poachers and big game hunters. While it’s not the worst rewrite in the world, the whole thing just feels like it was made from a financial necessity rather than an artistic one.
Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is the son of a slimy Russian gangster (Russell Crowe). As a boy, he was mauled by a lion and thanks to a drop of supernatural lion blood and a bit of black magic, he gained heightened animalistic senses, strength, and cunning. Kraven sets out to stop and kill a group of hunters who are part of an international crime syndicate. Naturally, they make a big mistake when they kidnap Kraven’s brother.
Say what you will about Venom: The Last Dance, but at least it was short. (It was only ninety minutes if you didn’t count the credits and post-credits scenes). This one clocks in at over two hours, and it has a hard time justifying the overlength. The flashback of Kraven’s origin story is particularly longwinded.
Fortunately, all this is at least moderately entertaining whenever it does find its footing. It's also more competently put together than either Morbius or Madame Web. That’s a low bar to be sure, but I think that comes from having a real director (A Most Violent Year’s J.C. Chandor) at the helm. The R rating means it’s at least bloodier than either of those movies too.
Taylor-Johnson equips himself well enough in the role. He’s younger than his comics counterpart, but he carries his air of arrogance and swagger as much as could be expected. While Crowe stops short of chewing the scenery, he injects a little bit of life into the film whenever he shows up. Alessandro Nivola is fine as the main villain, The Rhino, but the fact that he wears a backpack that turns him into a monster is cheesy as fuck.
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