Kraven Kravinoff's complex relationship with his ruthless gangster father, Nikolai, starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunt...
Rejoice, one and all! Sony is pulling the plug on their Spider-Man Villains Universe so their little make-shift franchise is finally and effectively dead. To celebrate the occasion, I shall officially send “Kraven The Hunter” on its way too and officially write this franchises eulogy in stone.
And what do ya know? It’s more of the same.
Insipidly prosaic as the other SonyVerse films to release this year, a part of me still can’t believe how barely decipherable these movies end up becoming and while Kraven is no different, it is the only film out of this franchise that comes the closest to actually being about something: actions having consequences, bearing the sins and responsibilities of those who came before us and the unsubtle planted seeds that toxic masculinity and manipulation can do to a person when backed into a corner. But as per usual, it’s stuck with an annoyingly incohesive script that cuts the legs out underneath all of that attempted progress despite bearing a structure seemingly fit to support the drama it builds to. Lurching clumsily from scene to scene, the narrative trips over every tonal hurdle it looks to fit into, growing more slipshod when it struggles for any shred of innovation and opting to drown you in exposition instead. Yeah, cause that worked so f’n well the last time, didn’t it?
Endurance becomes a big problem after the half hour mark: plot holes keep piling up the wahzoo and the plot has so little energy left for depth or originality left to cover those gapping holes before the climax; everything feels boilerplate to the point of parody.
And every crevice of what it has to substitute for a narrative builds itself around Kraven as opposed to him starting the plot or letting the plot happen to him, which is something his counterparts normally would do. The furthest they get to try and make up for that is so esoterically lopsided as the thinly sketched dynamics between the characters and expose the abysmally small window of focus, restraint and traction it refused to take advantage of. Not to mention, if you really think about, this package is so by-numbers and comic book-generic that pretty much any super-powered individual could be substituted for the title character without having to change much (if any) of this overly restrictive sludge.
I understand how a project like this attracted someone like J.C Chandor but this venture into the superhero gymnastics probably should be a one-time thing for the foreseeable future. He barely squeezes a personality out of this Frankenstein and everything he operates here has only the slightest guise of functionality required without much purpose.
For as emboldening the scope of this world tries to be, the scale of the production design is not only visually drab, it hardly fits within the confines of this mold. I know It doesn’t feel as much but considering the connection between Kraven and the animals, a central theme of the character, is treated as an afterthought here, the worldbuilding is effectively weakened because it makes his motivations feel hollow, especially when Kraven’s actions directly cause those animals he cares about harm. Camerawork is about as basic and blue balls as they come; nothing visually striking or skillfully composed pops up to resemble a monochrome of artistic integrity and the choppy editing is only just an exemplification of how badly it fails to establish any sense of momentum from one shot to the next. Costumes barely atone for anything, the runtime is unnecessarily bloated with glacial pacing to boot, and as atmospherically sweeping as the musical score is, that too gets lose in the shuffle amongst all the other white noise.
Even the subsequent R-rating, which the entire film was marketed around, felt surgically designed from the ground up to bullshit you. Between the off-screen F-bombs and unconvincing globs of CG blood making the entire feature feel more like a bug than something genuine, I’m convinced the R-rating was a last minute decision to save face to get SOMEONE to see it before they closed up shop.
Annoyingly, the action sequences are probably the only good thing the R-rating emboldens and elevates. Maybe its just that rating allows the action to properly be rendered the way its supposed to look but don’t mistake the action, its choreography or stunt work as exceptional be cause of that.
Only Russell Crowe and Alessandro Nivola understand the assignment of whatever this was with their performances; everyone else is either phoning it in or woefully miscast. A good percentage of the movie’s character interactions are on a green screen or ADR’d for off-screen dialogue and once again, horrendous sound dubbing bears its ugly teeth as a result. Not that it helps with how barren the characters are or how derivative the dialogue already is.
So herein lies Kraven the Hunter: another in the woefully long line of toothless self-sabotages Sony tried to cram square pegs into round holes with until the foundation crumbled and they were consumed by their own flames. Let this be the death kneel for what should’ve never been and a much needed wake up call for the executives that HALF-ASSING everything will not fill up your bank accounts any faster.
