Kraven the Hunter

Recap
Kraven must come to terms with his past while figuring out where he belongs in the present.
Spoiler Level: Mild
Review
After being informed that their mother committed suicide, a teenage Sergei Kravinoff (Levi Miller) and his half-brother, Dmitri (Billy Barratt) go on a big game hunting trip with their father, Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a crime lord and drug trafficker. During the hunt, Sergei is attacked by a lion. He would have succumbed to his wounds, if a young girl named Calypso (Diaana Babnicova), had not saved Sergei by making him drink a mystical potion passed down to her from her grandmother. The mixture of the lion’s blood and the potion heals Sergei and gives him enhanced senses, strength, agility, and a connection to animals. Soon after returning to their London home, Sergei abandons his brother running away from his father, working his way to his mother’s ancestral home in Russia. Sixteen years later, Sergei now calling himself Kraven, (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) a.k.a. The Hunter uses his powers to stop poachers and to dispatch bad people doing bad things. He also has been searching for Calypso (Ariana DeBose), who he finally finds while in London to see his brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) on his birthday. Calypso is now a lawyer but frustrated with the legal world as criminals often beat the system. Kraven offers her an alliance; he can give her justice while she helps him with information obtained through her informants. After the head of an organized crime ring is killed in prison, Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) and Kraven’s father, Nikolai, begin a war to obtain the assets and power that are now up for grabs. Aleksei, who had a physical condition, used an experimental treatment. His skin is now nearly impenetrable, which also gives him the resemblance of a human rhinoceros hybrid, giving him the name “The Rhino”. Aleksei, with the help from The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott), a superpowered assassin, kidnaps Dmitri attempting to blackmail Nikolai who refuses to pay the ransom for his son, seeing that as an admission of weakness, so Kraven, with Calypso’s help sets out to rescue his brother culminating in a showdown between Kraven, Calypso, the Rhino and the Foreigner.
Kraven the Hunter is an American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character and is the sixth film in the Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU) as opposed to the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The movie was released on December 13, 2024, after two years of delays and has been a critical and financial flop. As of December 20th, Kraven has grossed $30.2 million worldwide on a $110 (or $130 depending on your source) budget. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 3.9/10 rating based on 132 reviews with its consensus reading “Claiming no trophies with its rote story and shoddy special effects, Kraven the Hunter turns out to be a paper tiger”. Metacritic has it at 35/100 based on 40 reviews of critics. Audiences didn’t like it much better, with polling from CinemaScore rating it a “C” on an A+ to F scale and polls from PostTrak gave it a 59% score. If the film would have been a success, there was talks of doing the Kraven’s Last Hunt storyline from the comic books with Spider-Man staring as well and a Sinister Six crossover film that was also a possibility. With the film’s projected failure, it has been reported that Kraven the Hunter will be the last non-Venom film in the SSU.
First off, I was trepidatious in viewing this movie as I was worried that there would be a lot of onscreen animal killings, and luckily, there isn’t too much of that. There is some animal killing which mainly happens off screen. This isn’t a terrible film, I found it mildly entertaining, but just barely! I would think with such a strong cast Russell Crowe, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ariana DeBose individually, all being really well-established actors, and a well-respected director such as J. C. Chandor that this film couldn’t lose, but nothing could save it from the horrible script and muddied storyline. None of the actors ever felt connected to each other or to the film, making it hard for the audience to relate or to just care. The two leads, Ariana and Aaron, had very little chemistry in their scenes together and it all just felt thrown together and forced. Nothing in this film felt organic or natural, which made it very hard for me to care what happened to anyone (except the animals). The plot was predictable, and nothing felt new or fresh. Overall, watching the film wasn’t wasted time and I have seen a lot worse, but the flaws of this movie are blaringly apparent and hard to get past.
Final Thoughts
While this isn't a horrible film it really isn't very good.
Kraven is now showing in theaters.
The New Movie of the Week: Kraven the Hunter
- Writing - 4/104/10
- Storyline - 6/106/10
- Acting - 5/105/10
- Music - 8/108/10
- Production - 7/107/10