Kraven The Hunter follows Sergei Kravinoff, the estranged son of a Russian crime lord and infamous hunter of criminals. Sergei, or Kraven as he likes to be known, was left for dead after a hunting accident but a mystical medicine paired with lion blood saved his life and gave him the supernatural abilities to fight against a world of darkness. When his brother, Dmitri, is kidnapped, Kraven is reluctantly pulled back into the struggles of his father's criminal world.
This movie had one surprising strength: how unafraid it was to be a bit visceral and hardcore. The action scenes could be gory, rapid and with extreme bursts of brutality. It marked Kraven as an interesting character because the way he put himself into a conflict was unique, resulting in some really varied action sequences. There were also surprising bursts of random comedy or one-liners that took you off-guard but in a good way, the humour was a neat reprieve from everything else.
The way this film is shot is far from the most gripping action film of the year but it serves the piece well. I enjoyed how movement was captured, the focus on sweeping location sets and the way an action scene was covered made for some of the more gripping moments.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played Kraven The Hunter, is somewhat practised at leading a film and did a nice job with what was available; the little moments of surprising levity really landed because of him.
However, the best performance came from Russell Crowe, who played Nikolai Kravinoff. The mark of experience and an accomplished career push Crowe leagues ahead of the rest of the cast here. This is a man with a mean streak, Nikolai can burst into violence but he also likes displays of power through strength. Crowe portrays this man as an unrelenting patriarch, a mentor who pushes his children and protects them while also breaking them down. What really impressed me about Crowe's performance here is how his role shows weakness. The way he defers to Kraven, still hoping to fold his strong son into his empire. But even the quiet moments of fear that are tougher to read, subtle moments that tell us why Nikolai has set all of this in motion. Crowe knows how to perform well, even paired with a disaster of a script such as this.
Kraven The Hunter struggles to be a cohesive action film at the best of times, at the worst of times it's trying to make some passing link to the comics that inspired it. The film starts with a decent action sequence introducing us to Kraven, it's a decent fight precursored by a couple of rubbish gags. Not too shabby, we are in with a chance. Then the film sends us hurtling through a prolonged flashback sequence that is nearly the entirety of the first act. The Kravinoff family, their whole dynamic, is strange and barely works much beyond male bravado character traits being imparted. The random hunting trip in which Kraven gets his powers, we are introduced to Rhino/Aleksei, we are introduced to Calypso and Nikolai has a full-blown meltdown is a strong signpost this film was not going to be good. Kraven's origin is a lot of nonsense that seems motivated by some strange connection he holds with wildlife that is never very well explored and a magical potion that feels poorly wedged into the script. But poorly wedged into the script might embody everything there is to say about leading lady, Calypso. Calypso who is sort of pa with a lot of African mysticism as her introduction and then is a very British lawyer several years later who also happens to have lethal archery training somehow. Kraven simpers around Calypso, killing people for her and 'for the greater good'; in fact, the pair turn into a bit of a duo very much out of nothing. Kraven awkwardly fights from place to place, going to locations but never really deepening the plot in any way until he kills the big bad, and in a very anti-climactic way, his father. The Rhino as a villain seems more of a joke to the point of parody, a crime boss who was so bullied that he took a drug that now turns him into a rhino if he wants to. The film also pads the thing out with antagonists like The Foreigner, who only confuse the plot and shouldn't ever really be inserted. The whole film pushes an unearned sequel tease between the Kravinoff brothers and undermines everything shown about the relationship between Kraven and his father, with Kraven taking a final point of advice from his father's letter. It almost feels against Kraven's nature to be wearing his iconic lion vest by the film's end.
I do not know what the budget was for Kraven The Hunter but it was clearly too small for the overly ambitious special effects. How characters moved in a scene sometimes looked unnatural paired with the environment, there were clear points of blue screen, the CGI animal designs were especially unforgivable and the final design for Rhino was quite comedic in some shots of the final fight. I also thought the score for the film was extremely unremarkable and barely present; while the soundtrack was such a hodgepodge of musical content that failed to uplift a very substandard movie.
Ariana DeBose, who played Calypso Ezili, is really hitting a string of awful roles at present; DeBose feels flat in this and doesn't seem to know how to substantiate an 'in' to this character. Fred Hechinger, who played Dmitri Kravinoff, is rather forgettable as the wilting lifeless Kravinoff brother; the lipsync performances Hechinger gives are a frightfully poor display. Alessandro Nivola, who played Aleksei Sytevich, presents his character like a Sacha Baron Cohen figure doing a dramatic lean; this absurd performance only gets worse when you see Nivola writhing and acting out his Rhino transformation scenes. Christopher Abbott, who played The Foreigner, was quite a bland antagonist; Abbott's role really had no reason to be in this and it was an error placing him in here. Levi Miller and Billy Barratt, who played Young Sergei and Young Dmitri respectively, just play up the angst of their roles a bit too much; Miller is a real case example that being a talented child actor isn't necessarily career-spanning. Diaana Babnicova and Susan Aderin, who played Young Calypso and Grandmother respectively, give the worst scene in the whole feature; Aderin's exposition delivery is so awkwardly dealt to the audience. Murat Seven, who played Ömer Ozdemir, is little more than a glorified henchman; his stoic stare and two-dimensional delivery make for a really uninteresting foe.
Embarrassingly, this is the best Sony Spider-Man spinoff film this year. I would give Kraven The Hunter a 3.5/10.
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