HOLLYWOOD—Critics totally panned, and I mean panned, the movie “Kraven the Hunter.” Surprisingly, I didn’t find the movie terrible, it is palatable, but nothing outstanding. With that said, the narrative is not fantastic, but I didn’t find myself bored watching it and this is a two-hour movie. So, the fact that “Kraven the Hunter” managed to maintain my attention, considering this is a solo movie, not actually tied to the superhero, Spider-Man, where I first heard about the character.
Now the acting, it is questionable considering you have Oscar-winner, Ariana DeBose, as Calypso, a lawyer with a secret past. She becomes entangled in the drama after Kraven aka Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), whose world is turned upside down after he is viciously attacked by a lion while in Ghana. Joining Sergei on this journey is his brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) and their father, Nikolai (Russell Crowe). The problem is the movie doesn’t utilize Calypso’s character as much as it could have.
Crowe perhaps delivering the best acting of the film portraying a father who is all about pushing his children to be ‘men’ and to hopefully take over his drug empire one day. Crowe is an Oscar-winner, whose actual talents have gone underutilized in recent years after winning that Oscar for “Gladiator” and should have won the Oscar for his work in “A Beautiful Mind.”
With that said, Sergei receives a special serum from Calypso after that attack, that gives him heightened skills, that of an animal with incredible vision, strong scent and the ability to move and jump like a literal animal. The one thing that did annoy me about this anti-hero flick was the visual effects of the animals. It was so obvious that the CGI was being used for the animals compared to other movies that would at times interject an actual animal to give the notion that what you’re seeing is real, and a threat, not so much here.
The narrative at large follows Kraven who has decided NOT to follow in his father’s footsteps and hunts criminals across the world. As the legend says, once you’re on Kraven’s list, you don’t get off of it, perhaps this is our heroes way of righting the wrongs of his father with all his drug peddling across the world. Kraven’s life is pleasant, but that all changes when his brother is kidnapped by the big bad, Aleksei Sytsevich aka Rhino (Alessandro Nivola).
This is where the movie loses me yet again because you have another villain that is actually from the lore of the Spider-Man universe. Yes, anyone who has seen any of the Spider-Man movies or comics are well aware of the iconic character, who appears here, but as a threat to Kraven and not our favorite webslinger. Is he a formidable foe to our hero. He’s ok, we really don’t see him in all his glory until the big climax, and by the time that happens the movie is already ending. Not to mention, we have the addition of another semi-villain, who is laughable if I have to be honest.
This movie is a fun watch, it has entertaining moments and when it comes to action it is fantastic. There is plenty of hand-to-hand combat, chase sequences, explosions, gunfire and depth-defying stunts that are amazing to watch on the big screen. “Kraven the Hunter” simply suffers from not having a story that is compelling enough to take it to the next level as a spectator.
