There’s a reason Sony released the first eight minutes of “Kraven the Hunter” before its theatrical bow.
It’s the best part of the supervillain origin tale. Faint praise alert!
Director J.C. Chandor’s film isn’t as snicker-worthy as Sony’s other 2024 dud, “Madame Web.” But it’s close.
A pumped-up Aaron Taylor-Johnson looks like the Marvel Comics villain, but he’s abandoned by a script that can charitably be described as dopey. Some action sequences pop on cue, suggesting what might have been in more capable hands.
When the mayhem wraps the film collapses.
It’s Kraven with a “K,” thank you.
So says Taylor-Johnson as Sergei, a hulking gent powered by a potion that turned him into the titular Hunter. The character’s origin story is cutesy and tired, but the same could be said of other MCU figures.
A radioactive spider? Gamma radiation? We’ll cut the film some slack.
The story follows Kraven as he hunts down those who poach wild animals or otherwise behave badly. He’s also got daddy issues, courtesy of his wicked papa (Russell Crowe, hamming it up). The Russian patriarch speaks in hunting cliches, but at least his performance won’t make you cringe.
The same isn’t true elsewhere. Why are these Spider-related movies so amateurish? Chandor’s film resume is impressive, from “Margin Call” to the slick survival tale “All Is Lost.”
Did the Men in Black zap his frontal lobe prior to the shoot?
View this post on Instagram
“Kraven the Hunter” is neither forgettable like “Morbius” or jaw-droppingly bad a la “Madame Web.” Still, “Kraven” offers several laugh-out-loud moments, the kind destined to launch a thousand memes.
It doesn’t help that a signature villain eventually limps to the forefront. That’s Alessandro Nivola as The Rhino, whose backstory is so sparse it could fit on a postage stamp. He’s not your cookie-cutter baddie, but his physical tics are unintentionally hilarious.
Sense a theme here?
Another villain goes by The Foreigner, because, “I’m not from around here.” Give Christopher Abbott an honorary Oscar for saying that line with a straight face.
“Kraven the Hunter” is silly, then sober, a grab bag of tones that never gels into a reputable film. The heroic character is a classic MCU villain, but the attempt to make that transition is as disastrous as everything preceding it.
The action sequences offer a stark exception.
They pop off the screen, using mostly solid CGI to plug the visual gaps. The digital lions, tigers and bears aren’t as convincing.
Taylor-Johnson’s Hunter is a force of nature, effectively revealed during that opening sequence and elsewhere. Chandor knows what a superhero film needs in these moments, even though his resume hardly screams Comic-Con adjacent.
It’s the rest of “Kraven” that plays out in awkward fashion. Take Calypso (Ariana DeBose), whose ties to the younger Sergei offer the first of many guffaws. She helps Kraven track down one elusive enemy with a single phone call.
Better call Saul? Try Calypso!
Later, Kraven tracks down another character without breaking a sweat.
“I’m a hunter. That’s what I do.” If only more screenwriters could explain away key film moments that way.
You won’t find any mid-credit scenes at the end of “Kraven the Hunter.” The studio in question, Sony, pulled the plug on Spidey movies prior to the film’s release date.
They saw the finished cut and probably didn’t laugh once.
HiT or Miss: “Kraven the Hunter” marks another super misfire, squandering an interesting villain for a paint-by-numbers yarn beneath the once-great genre.
The post ‘Kraven the Hunter’ Brings the Laughter (But It’s Not a Comedy) appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.
0 Comments