There is no point going back to the stories of big money which landed part of the rights to Spider-Man at Sony-Columbia rather than Marvel. Still, in collaboration, these Hollywood studios seem to have decided to reward us with as many derivative films as the kid bitten by a spider has known paper adversaries. After the big anything three Venomthe quickly forgotten failures of Morbius et Madame Web, so here is Kraven the Hunter. Our only hope lay in the commitment of the estimable ex-independent filmmaker JC Chandor (Margin Call, All Is Lost, A Most Violent Year) to pilot this story of its origins.
In the opening, we witness the elimination of a mafioso in a Russian penal colony lost in Siberia, a mission from which “the hunter” (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) then extracts with disconcerting ease. Sixteen years earlier, he was one of two sons of oligarch Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), an England-based drug lord who drove their mother to suicide before teaching them the harsh law of men: becoming hunters rather than prey. Brought back to life by a sort of magic potion following an encounter with a giant lion in Africa, Sergei/Kraven then escaped his father’s control to instead become this superhuman and merciless vigilante. A “legend” which a new mafia boss, the Rhino, will try to get rid of…
Low charisma
The whole affair, based on Russian villains, fantastic animals and superpowers against plethora of private arsenals, is so absurd and full of clichés that the director treats it as such from the outset, with major shortcuts reminiscent of the white spaces between the boxes of a comic strip. The trouble is that we lose interest just as quickly, its concern for readability not helping any more than the weak charisma of its actors. Fans of brutal action could nevertheless be satisfied, while movie buffs will definitely put an end to JC Chandor, who at the age of 50 became the last in a long line of filmmakers to have given up.
“Kraven the Hunter”, by JC Chandor (United States, 2024), with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Russell Crowe, Ariana DeBose, Alessandro Nivola, Fred Hechinger, Christopher Abbott. 2:07
