‘Kraven The Hunter’ 4K UHD Digital (review)

Sony Pictures

When I was a kid, I never imagined that we would one day have a Spider-Man movie.

Heck, I remembered buying Comics Scene magazine and poring at all of the rumors. Well, we did eventually get that Spider-Man movie. And we got a lot of them with more to come.

Then, the geniuses over at Sony tried to do their own thing, first with Venom.

Venom was a huge hit for Sony and the movies are fun entertainment. They figured, “hey, why not do some other films with some other Spider-Man villains?”

And that is where everything went to hell.

Sony didn’t realize that the first Venom film was a fluke.

It is anchored by Tom Hardy’s crazed performance that is laughable, but fun. He is nowhere near the Venom of the comics but who cares? Sony figured that they would do more.

So, we got Morbius. God, it’s awful. But somehow it is rewatchable.

Madame Web followed suit. Awful.

But these films feel like Academy Award bait compared to the absolute masterpiece of awfulness that the Kraven The Hunter film is.

Now, earlier I said that when I was a kid that I never thought that there would be a Spider-Man film. I certainly never thought there would ever in a million years be a Kraven The Hunter film. This character was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko for Amazing Spider-Man #15. And the Kraven of this film once again has nothing to really do with his comic book counterpart.

The biggest shame of this film is that Aaron Taylor-Johnson is actually a magnetic actor. He certainly brings a lot to most of the roles he plays. Here, he barely bothers to act. The film shows us the origin of Kraven as a young boy to how he becomes the vigilante he is today. After a tragedy, he grows up to become a heroic vigilante. He has animalistic kind of powers. And boy, the film doesn’t mind showing us every one of them courtesy of cheap CGI.

But that’s not the biggest crime of this film.

No, the biggest crime is just how boring the whole thing is. At least give us a little blood and violence! But no, we get a lot of pontificating and a lot of navel gazing. The film is supposedly written by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk which is baffling. Did all three of them use AI to write this script?

There are a lot of battles in this between Kraven and the Foreigner but after a while, I started to tune out.

Even worse, Russell Crowe shows up.

And literally, that’s all he does. He shows up. I think Crowe has gotten to the point in his career where he just wants to stand in one place and deliver lines. And that’s literally what he does in this film with very little inflection. My father when he was alive used to enjoy Crowe in many films. When he was bad though, my dad used to say, “he’s not even trying that Crowe!” I heard my father often when Crowe was onscreen.

Lastly, the saddest thing of this entire enter is that J.C. Chandor is actually great filmmaker. All Is Lost? Great film. Actually, all of his films before this one are great. He has directed solid films with solid performances. This feels like studio demands got in the way of the creative team being able to create. And that is a sad thing.

By the end of the film, we get a weak and super anemic cameo by a villain nobody cares about, suggesting that there is a bigger story at play. Thanos snapped his fingers and got rid of half the people in the world yet these people managed to survive?

The writing is terrible. The acting is hilarious. This is a dull and lifeless comic book film. Even with some Viagra, I doubt it would come to life. This is the kind of film that makes you wonder if you’ve been punked. It almost feels like this is Sony’s passive aggressive response to the reception of Madame Web.

Despite my low expectations, Kraven was even worse than I could have predicted. 

Extras include featurettes, outtakes & bloopers, and deleted scenes.

For masochists only.