Kraven the Hunter - Probably the Final Movie in the Sony's Spider-man Universe which could Diminish All Hopes of Possible Major Cross-over

As fans of superhero movies, my wife and I certainly do not want to miss out on this, even if we are not familiar with the character. Originally we wanted to see this in the cinema with Dolby Atmos system near our home but it did not play the film. So we ended up seeing it in another studio with standard sound system not far from there yesterday. OK, I'll get straight to it now.

Brief Story Line

Sergei (Aaron Taylor-Johnson - The Fall Guy Bullet Train etc) and his half brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger - Gladiator II, The White Lotus season 1 TV series etc) were the sons of Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe - Thor: Love and Thunder, Noah etc), a Russian crime lord who had been grooming them, especially Sergei to become his heir. However, Sergei decided to become vigilante hunting criminals and got the nickname of Kraven the Hunter. Kraven was able to become a hunter with amazing powers after an incident he experienced during a hunting trip years before.

Meanwhile Nikolai's competitor Aleksei (Alessandro Nivola - Boston Strangler, The Big Cigar TV series etc) aka The Rhino tried to take over the business and used whatever means necessary to do so. Kraven enlisted the help from his teenage savior Calypso (Ariana DeBose - Argylle, Wish etc) who was now working as a lawyer to track down Aleksei. Despite his own extraordinary strength, Aleksei still enlisted the help from professional assassin with unique ability called the Foreigner (Christopher Abbott - James White, Catch-22 TV series etc) to fight Kraven.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I said above that both of us were not familiar with this character. All I know was Kraven was one of the enemy of Spider-man and part of the group of villains referred to as Sinister Six. In fact, this is the sixth movie in the Sony's Spider-man Universe (SSU) which included Venom and its two sequels, Morbius and Madame Web. But sadly aside from Venom trilogy which at least still reasonably accepted, the others were hugely trashed by critics and audience. And it's not looking really good for this movie as well.

Anyway, the film actually started off fine enough with a well executed action sequence that showed Kraven's capabilities and with the strong violence shown made it entertaining. With such brutality through out the whole film and some crude languages, no wonder it was R-rated. However I did feel that the pace was a bit inconsistent with long dialogues every now and then. My wife pointed out that it was ridiculous for having casual conversations between Kraven and Calypso in his hideout when there was a pressing dangerous matter to be resolved and need to be attended urgently as it involved life and death situations. Even the guy seated next to me dozed off a bit during one of those long conversations in the middle of the film, which I could understand.

The story itself was rather simple and not difficult to understand. Few details were not clearly shown like how Kraven could become the Hunter and who he partnered with, plus his friendship with Calypso that came a bit too easy. Nevertheless, I really liked the action scenes as they were wonderfully done. The fights were amazing and the final fight was quite satisfying (but not the one before that which was too brief and easy). The ending was good enough for us which should have set up nicely to the cross over with other villains in the Sinister Six. Unfortunately with the unclarity of its future, it's looking less likely that would happen. This also would explain why there was no mid or post end credit scene here as Sony was probably doubtful if it was worthwhile to make it.

The film had a quite long duration of 127 minutes including closing credits. There was a pretty long story of young Sergei and Dmitri portrayed by Levi Miller (Pan, A Wrinkle in Time etc) and Billy Barratt (Invasion TV series etc) respectively, which sort of like the origin story of Kraven. It was OK for me as it gave a clear context on the why, though not the how. The movie was directed by J. C. Chandor whose prior works included Margin Call and A Most Violent Year that were nominated and won several awards. But he won't get any praise in here cause the movie was really panned by critics and audience. 

Overall the film would likely become another miss by Sony as the Box Office performance was not looking good. But personally to me, this was still OK especially in term of the action and Aaron Taylor-Johnson performed admirable to try and bring this Kraven to life. My wife and I quite enjoyed those action scenes, however I was not that happy with the long dialogues, inconsistent pace and unconvincing relationship between Kraven and Calypso while she was disappointed with the character Foreigner who she thought was useless. So if you just want to see some actions of another Spider-man's enemy with interesting unique powers fighting against other villains, then you could give this a try. Just don't expect this to be of the best quality and you should be fine.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars