Kraven the Hunter misses so many creative targets in devastatingly tedious ways (Review)

Warning: This review contains spoilers for Kraven the Hunter.

Kraven the Hunter begins on one fateful September morning in 2001. Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is snoozing away in his bedroom when his younger brother Dmitri Smerdyakov (Fred Hechinger) bursts into his room and imparts some terrible news: "SERGEI! SERGEI! TURN ON THE TV! THEY HIT THE PENTAGON!" In the wake of realizing life is fleeting, Sergei changes his career plans. Tossing aside his original accounting ambitions, he instead pursues his dreams of exotic dancing. Soon, Sergei becomes one of New York City’s most famous strippers thanks to his use of animal-based costumes in his acts.

The moniker “Kraven the Hunter” is also imparted to him thanks to how he’s always “hunting” the juiciest dudes to smooch. Of course, eventually, Kraven decides to take his insecurity over mortality to the next level by dishing out death itself to the most wicked souls out there.

Kraven the Hunter functions as an indicating commentary on how Americans can only respond to trauma through violence and… none of this is in J.C. Chandor’s latest directorial effort. Forgive me for going down a fan-fiction rabbit hole. However, Kraven the Hunter’s actual plot offers so little substance. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining a superior version of the feature. Instead, the latest (last?) Sony’s Spider-Man Universe title actually delivers an overdose of exposition and set-up. It’s all table-setting never giving you a yummy meal to chew on.

After a brief prologue depicting protagonist Sergei enacting some gnarly revenge in Russian, Kraven the Hunter begins with a flashback to Sergei and Dmitri's teenage years. These two are the sons of famous Russian gangster Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe). He instills constant messaging to the duo that men can NEVER show vulnerability. "We are hunters," Nikolai always says, and weakness can make them prey. As the trio goes on a hunting trip to Northern Ghana, Chandor, cinematographer Ben Davis, and screenwriters Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway immediately establish Kraven’s inert dialogue-oriented storytelling approach. Characters trade lifeless expository lines with minimal personality. It’s all about flatly communicating character motivation and lore rather than being fun.

This is tediously reflected in an early scene depicting an adolescent Calypso Ezili discovering her "magical" ancestry, not to mention the power of tarot cards, from her grandmother. This information is rotely presented with little rhyme or reason why the camera alternates between medium and wider shots. Similarly monotonous conversations dominate the screen once Nikolai and his comrades arrive in Northern Ghana. All the chatter briefly stops once Sergei gets attacked by a lion. This should’ve killed him… but Calypso slips him a magical liquid from her grandmother that gives Kraven superpowers.

Yes, this is the second Sony’s Spider-Man Universe movie of 2024 to center a main character’s superpower origin story around getting magical abilities from non-white people in foreign countries. Alas, nobody’s mother perishes in the Amazon while researching spiders here.

Eventually, Kraven the Hunter establishes its primary plot of Kraven (who grows up into beefcake Johnson) leaving home, honing his hunting skills, and beginning a life-long mission of taking out people as evil as his father. He gathers a reputation as “The Hunter,” with mob boss Aleksei Sytsevich/The Rhino (Alessandro Nivola) eager to eliminate a formidable figure slaughtering his associates. In Kraven’s exploits taking out the criminal underworld, Chandor and the screenwriters reflect occasional impulses to channel classic '80s vigilante movies. Just look at an opening sequence featuring Kraven offering up a pun after slaughtering Russian prisoners next to gym equipment.

This brutal hunter headlining a grimy violence-driven B-movie Cameron Mitchell would’ve appeared in isn’t the worst idea. However, Kraven the Hunter keeps betraying those impulses. For one thing, action sequences are shockingly scarce here. Chandor’s camera is more interested in capturing Kraven regaling a grown-up Calypso (Ariana DaBose) with plot details viewers already know. When fistfights do appear on-screen, they’re hampered by choppy editing and distractingly obvious CG stunt doubles. Perhaps once there were ambitions of making Kraven the Hunter something akin to The Raid. In execution, it’s a 2024 movie paling in comparison to Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In's fight choreography.

It's also frustrating how Kraven is really averse to getting its hands dirty. A handful of gnarly slaughters and F-bombs can’t distract from how routine this enterprise is. There’s nary a trace of moral ambiguity on-screen, nor are any challenging concepts explored in its runtime. The feature especially stumbles in what on Earth it’s trying to say about masculinity. Chandor’s Triple Frontier previously attempted to depict the innate futility of violent revenge. Kraven the Hunter, meanwhile, condemns extreme violence through the character of Nikolai before asking audiences to cheer Kraven indulging in such brutality. Unable to commit to either subverting or embracing machismo, Kraven the Hunter is left stranded with no personality.

That absence of temperament isn't aided by a slew of interior sets plopping characters into drab environments like dimly-lit hallways, a "science room" with lots of fans, or Nikolai's dingy office. These tedious visual instincts are paralleled in another lifeless Benjamin Wallfisch score (here accompanied by fellow composers Evgueni Galperine and Sacha Galperine). Creating orchestral tracks for an anti-hero who bites off people's noses should be an opportunity to let loose as a composer. Maybe there could even be some Death Grips or 100 gecs anarchic energy in these tracks! Instead, Wallfisch opts for various Hans Zimmer-style music cues that could've been lifted from any of his prior blockbuster score assignments like The Flash, Shazam!, or Mortal Kombat. This forgettable score epitomizes how everyone is going through the motions on Kraven the Hunter.

That includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, delivering yet another forgettable leading man turn. There’s a moment later on where Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven slams a man to the dirty ground while bellowing inquiries about where a loved one is. This actor’s line deliveries are so unintentionally humorous, he just doesn’t sound ominous whatsoever. There’s a vivid lack of life to Taylor-Johnson’s performance. Even when he’s exact violent justice, there’s no joy or authority in his physicality. Tragically, few others in the cast deliver much better performances (poor Ariana DeBose) save for Alessandro Nivola. Tasked with a thankless villain role, Nivola’s performance is punctuated with amusing chuckles and a love for his canine companion. There’s more interiority to his Sytsevich than anyone in Morbius or Madame Web. If nothing else, maybe his work here will inspire more folks to check out his excellent performance in the criminally underrated The Art of Self-Defense.

No matter the ambitions of the people behind it, Kraven the Hunter feels like it rolled right off an assembly line. Heck, this feature even concludes with Kraven facing off against a gigantic CG adversary like so many modern comic book adaptations. Worst of all, the feature ends like Snake Eyes, Madame Web, or one of the Marvel Netflix shows with the lead character FINALLY putting on their famous costume seconds before the credits roll. It’s a stupid maneuver that always solidifies that the movie you just finished watching was an appetizer. A really unfulfilling appetizer, not some yummy chips & queso.

Perhaps Kraven the Hunter would’ve been better opting for my proposed plotline built on a OneyPlays reference. Surely it couldn’t be worse than the Kraven the Hunter movie sheepishly rolling into theaters.