When Marvel Studios found their brand was dropping in quality, they decided to halt productions and take stock of how to get back on track. This is why this year saw only one release, Deadpool and Wolverine, which was a winner. On the other hand, Sony Pictures, which owns the rights to the Spider-Man universe, hasn’t learned from that lesson. While Spidey’s films have succeeded, thanks to some input from Marvel Studios, their spin-off movies have all failed to deliver, to the point that they finally decided to stop. This year must be their worst, with the terrible Madame Web kicking things off, Venom: The Last Dance failing to score, and now we have Kraven The Hunter, which, even with a skilled director and strong cast, cannot breathe life into a movie that is, quite frankly, boring.

Kraven The Hunter is an incredibly feared man. His animalistic tracking skills allow him to find his prey, no matter where they are. His relationship with his drug-baron father makes him an anti-hero, going after those who break the law. When his brother is kidnapped, Kraven has to go against his father’s rival, The Rhino, although this puts him at odds with the man who wants him to be head of his business.

The opening few minutes of this movie, you do think that it has promise. An impressive jailbreak that sees Kraven getting inside the prison where a top gang boss is incarcerated. Maybe Sony has hired the right director for this film, J. C. Chandor. With a decent collection of films on his CV (All is Lost, A Most Violent Year, Margin Call), this could be the right director to take a superhero movie in a more serious direction. Sadly, this film has had trouble after trouble in its production. It has had to return to the studio countless times for re-edits and re-shoots. You can see precisely why and feel they still haven’t got it right.

Taking away the beginning, the film explains precisely why this muscle-bound avenger can climb walls and has superhuman strength and speed. As a younger man, he is attacked by a lion and is left to die until a young girl, Calypso, feeds him a potion that gives him the strength and skills of his attacker. After this extended sequence, which seems to go on forever, with an attempt to show the relationship between the boy and his father and the protection he has over his brother, we return to just after the jailbreak, and the story kicks in. Although the story is so flimsy and uninteresting.

We get outbursts of violent action scenes that barely get the adrenaline going, with long moments of dialogue that are both often laughable and uninvolving. You don’t really have a clear idea as to why Kraven is going after the bosses of gangs when his father is the biggest of them all. When The Rhino, a man who, during the flashback, wanted Kraven’s father to work with him and now owns his own operation but has a rare disease that makes his skin turn hard like a Rhino, you shake your head in disbelief at how lame this really is.

Thrown into the whole proceedings is Calypso, the young girl who saves the young Kraven’s life and is now a lawyer who helps the hunter track down his next victims, although morally, she feels this shouldn’t really happen; a brother, Demetri, who is mild-mannered and can impersonate anyone’s voice and again you wonder why until later in the film when you are given information that could be for a sequel that will never happen.

It is a shambles. Editing that makes some moments look like they belong somewhere else. A script that is laughably bad, although not on the scale as Madame Web and only the lead tries his best to keep things on track. Thankfully, Aaron Taylor-Johnson does his very best with Kraven and certainly can handle the physical aspects of the role, proving why he’s a front-runner for James Bond. Russell Crowe puts on a Russian accent with a New Zealand twang as Kraven’s father, while Ariana DeBose is wasted as Calypso and has one line said without any real passion that made me snigger out loud.

This would have been the dead nail for the series if it hadn’t been for the decision to stop making more Spider-Man spin-offs. It’s not as terrible as Moribus or Madame Web, but only just. It lacks anything that shows that a director with Chandor’s skills is at the helm, with a pedestrian, incredibly dull premise that won’t win over any new fans to a character that has been a staple villain for Spider-Man. Best avoid.

1 out of 5

Director: J.C. Chandor

Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Russell Crowe, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, Levi Miller, Billy Barrett

Written by: Art Marcum, Matt Holloway and (also story) Richard Werk

Running Time: 127 mins

Cert: 15

Release date: 13th December 2024