Review by C.J. Bunce
Kraven the Hunter is the latest in Sony Entertainment’s efforts to pull characters from the obscure corners of Marvel Comics. Not as good as its trilogy of Venom movies while also far better than its worst effort, Morbius, this supervillain turned anti-hero story does all it can to make the best of a Stan Lee creation. Originally a foe for Spider-Man and big game hunter, the movie version is an improvement, leaning into the man-hunting initially derived from the 1920s story “The Most Dangerous Game.” Nobody wants to see a hunter of animals as a hero, especially in a comic book movie, so taking its lead, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and making him a partner with animals like Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes, results in a B-level superhero movie like Bloodshot, Black Adam, Madame Web, The New Mutants, Ghost Rider, and The Rocketeer–there’s enough to like here, but not so much that you’ll probably find yourself rewatching it. Kraven the Hunter is now streaming on Netflix.
Taylor-Johnson, a possible contender for the next James Bond who we’ve already seen in the superhero space as Kick-Ass and the MCU’s Quicksilver, plays Sergei Kravinoff, son of a hunter and Russian crime boss played by Russell Crowe. When Sergei and his brother in their teen years are confronted by a lion, it tears into Sergei, who dies, to be saved by a young woman named Calypso, played by Ariana Debose. Calypso had only just been educated in the ways of her grandmother’s Tarot cards, and uses a powerful elixir her mother gave her to bring Sergei back to life. Like so many Stan Lee characters: Hulk, Spider-Man, Deadpool, etc., Sergei arises with his own superpowers that he perfects over time. These include speed, wall climbing, and general animal instincts that make him a legend in the crime community.
Notable here is a fascinating lair for Sergei, an opening where Sergei infiltrates a prison, Black Widow style, only to kill a kingpin inside. The story of the origin of his powers is nicely tucked into a subsequent flashback. Sergei tracks down Calypso in the present day, who is now a lawyer, and he encourages her to partner with him as he uses a deadpool list acquired from one of his targets as his own checklist. But one man knows he’s on the list and comes after him first. That’s Alessandro Nivola as Aleksai Sytsevich, who has used his own knowledge and super serum to become a supervillain called the Rhino. Rhino is one of those comic book characters like King Shark–he is a rhinoceros/biped creation.
One more supervillain is in the picture, Christopher Abbott as “The Foreigner,” a man who can manipulate time and space briefly to get an edge on anyone he chooses to attack. Absent a few key supervillains, like Red Skull and the Green Goblin, Marvel’s villains, especially the hundred or so crime bosses, are boring. But count Rhino and The Foreigner a bit above average, simply because of their presentation here and incorporation into Sergei aka Kraven’s story. Sergei’s brother is also in the story, played by Fred Hechinger, but he isn’t fleshed out very much.
You won’t count this among Russell Crowe’s best characters. But Taylor-Johnson brings something new to Marvel at the movies, sometimes seeming like he’s doing his own twist on a Matthew McConaughey character. Other times you can see Jason Statham making better use of this script. It has some good action scenes, including a few car chases/escapes, and the animals are all incorporated well into the story. And it’ advertised blood and guts violence is far less than we saw in any 1980s action movie–with a pleasantly surprising lack of violence against animals, given the theme.
Altogether it falls in the middle of the 250 movie and TV shows we’ve seen in the past few decades as superheroes have made their way into the mainstream. And that’s not bad. Check out Kraven the Hunter, streaming now on Netflix.
