Kraven the Hunter (2024) - Movie Review
What if I told you there was a Sony-produced Spider-Man spinoff film that isn’t entirely dog shit?
I know—after 2022’s Morbius and 2024’s masterpiece of failure, Madam Web—it’s hard to believe.
Let’s discuss.
Kraven the Hunter is a 2024 super hero action film brought to us by director J.C. Chandor and writers Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway. You can already see our first issue here.
Three Writers = Kiss of Death
Marcum and Holloway teamed to write the smash hit Iron Man in 2008. That’s a hell of a fish to hang on the wall, but they also served up the scripts for 2022’s Uncharted and 2017’s Transformers the Last Knight. Both films were less than stellar, and let’s not forget they also wrote the worst Men in Black film, 2019’s Men in Black: International. On the other hand, Wenk wrote all three films of the Denzel Washington-led Equalizer films along with many other quality action films. I don’t think he gets as much of the blame for this dumpster fire, as he’s only credited for the story concept.
Then there is the director. Chandor is a respected director, but his previous directorial efforts were much more contained. He is known for tense dramas like 2013’s Oscar-nominated effort All is Lost. He did direct 2019’s Triple Frontier tho, so him directing this film isn’t a complete oddity, but it’s definitely odd for one of these Spiderman cast offs.
The film focuses on Sergei Kravenov, a young man grievously wounded in a lion attack while on a hunting trip with his father. As he’s quickly bleeding out, a medicine woman’s granddaughter gives him an ancient potion, not knowing what it will do. It heals his wounds, but as he gets back on his feet, Sergei notices that he’s got enhanced senses, physical strength, and the ability to communicate with animals. When his father attempts to force Sergei to take over the family’s drug operation, he leaves as a prodigal and returns to Africa with a mission. He’s going to track down all the poachers and the people who employ them in the criminal underworld and kill them all. He becomes Kraven the Hunter. He’s extremely successful, which draws the attention of two dangerous underworld figures and their combined superhuman abilities. Will Kraven be able to overcome these horrific villains, or will he turn from the hunter to the hunted?
Yeah, kinda sounds like the Equalizer right? No surprise since the premise came from Wenk. However, it’s not as horrible as all the reviews made it out to be.
This is essentially a fun 90’s action movie.
The movie’s Cgi sucks, true, but the overall film experience is a lot of fun. The movie is extremely violent, John Wick-level, but with way more blood. The kills are inventive and thematic. There are some great set pieces too.
My favorite part of the movie was seeing all the Easter Eggs from the 90’s Spiderman: The Animated Series, especially an appearance by the animated series-accurate Chameleon, and a way better version of the Rhino than the 2014 Amazing Spider-man 2 appearance.
The problem is this, no matter how good Aaron Taylor Johnson, Russell Crowe, or Alessandro Nivola performed, this movie wasn’t going to succeed. You can’t make a Spider-Man film without Spider-Man.
Kraven is one of my Mount Rushmore characters in the Marvel Universe. He’s my favorite Spider-Man villain/ally. However, when this movie released, Kraven was being featured in the new Ultimate Spider-man comics as one of the nastiest villains in comic history without a shred of goodness. It’s a continuity mismatch. The 90’s mystical origin of the character has been redone, changed, or completely erased over the decades and while I’m a diehard fan for that version, it’s completely unknown to modern comic and comic book movie fans.
The script isn’t brilliant, but Russell Crowe and Aaron Taylor Johnson knock it out of the park.
So, if you are in the mood for a fun action movie and don’t want to have to think a lot, give Kraven a try.
It’s streaming free on Netflix.
