Summary
Dark and action-packed, this comic book entry brings moments of intrigue but struggles under chaotic storytelling and missed potential for its iconic character.
You have to give them top marks for trying. The Sony Spider-Man Universe (or SSU if you prefer) has often struggled with cohesion, largely due to the notable absence of Spider-Man and a lack of unity across its films. Yet after Morbius, Madame Web, and a trilogy of Venom films, director J. C. Chandor’s KRAVEN THE HUNTER makes an earnest attempt to track down any life left in the concept. As it turns out, there’s still a little bit of fun to be had.
It’s surprising that it’s taken so long to get to Kraven as a screen character. First introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #15 in August 1964 (a detail referenced in Kraven’s prisoner number 0864), he remains one of Spider-Man’s oldest and most iconic foes. His seminal appearance in the Kraven’s Last Hunt storyline of 1987 is still considered one of the greatest Spider-Man arcs ever written.
Yet, save for a few nods to familiar characters and a passing mention of the Daily Bugle, none of that classic lore is present here. KRAVEN THE HUNTER (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) bursts onto the screen with a prison assassination sequence designed to showcase his animalistic powers and basic modus operandi. Only after this action-heavy introduction does the film pivot into a surprisingly lengthy flashback to reveal his origin story.
Raised under the oppressive rule of his father, the ruthless crime lord Nikolai Kravinoff (a bass-voiced Russell Crowe), young Sergei (Levi Miller) is gravely injured by a lion during a hunting expedition with his father and timid half-brother, Dimitri. Sergei’s life is saved by a mysterious potion administered by Calypso, a young girl who also imbues him with extraordinary powers. Estranged from his family as he grows into the titular hunter, Sergei is thrust back into familial chaos when adult Dimitri (Fred Hechinger) is kidnapped by Rhino (Alessandro Nivola), a former associate of Nikolai now transformed with impenetrable skin. Enlisting the help of the adult Calypso (Ariana DeBose), Sergei embarks on a mission to rescue his brother.
As you can probably tell from that lengthy plot description, KRAVEN THE HUNTER throws a lot at the storyboard. Leaping between locations—from Northern Ghana to Far Eastern Russia, London to Northern Turkey and back again—there’s a constant sense of motion and chaos. Yet at its core, Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway’s script works best when it focuses on its dual themes of familial drama and Kraven’s identity as “nature’s perfect predator.”
That said, in the wake of the Black Panther films, this throwback to the “last of the white hunters” archetype feels positively retrograde. If you took a drink every time Aaron Taylor-Johnson solemnly intones “I am a hunter,” you’d be tipsy by the midpoint and likely miss the conclusion entirely. Rhino’s villainous motivation—being dismissed due to a physical weakness until he becomes an enhanced human—feels like a direct lift of Matt Smith’s Lucien in Morbius.
In that vein, Chandor uses every inch of the US R-rating to embrace the dark, brooding tone of “serious” comic book films. From heads caught in bear traps to men eviscerated by swinging logs that would put the Ewoks to shame, KRAVEN THE HUNTER doesn’t hold back. Kraven is depicted as an animalistic force, and the parkour-inspired action sequences would have made him a formidable screen adversary for Peter Parker. However, the big showdown with Rhino, while visually striking, feels anticlimactic, wrapping up in minutes after an extended lead-up.
Between this and Venom: The Last Dance’s fizzled finale, we might be witnessing the curtain call of the SSU—if it can even be said to have properly begun. KRAVEN THE HUNTER has its moments and might have worked as a standalone movie. Yet, with its nods to other characters and a rushed setup for future players who may never see the screen, it feels like a hunter caught in its own traps.
2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: J. C. Chandor | WRITERS: Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway (Based on the Marvel Comics character) | CAST: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, Russell Crowe | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 127 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 12 December 2024 (Australia), 13 December 2024 (USA)
