GRANTING. Even an AI wouldn’t dare write a film like that. Last superhero film of the year, Kraven the Hunter confirms that the recipe is well past the expiration date.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alessandro Nivola and Russell Crowe on the screen, JC Chandor whose “Margin Call”, “A Most Violent Year” and “All Is Lost” we really liked behind the camera… Even if we had doubts about the idea of offering the super-villain Kraven an “Origin Story” the project was no more absurd than yet another remake or reboot of a successful franchise. We even hoped that the darker tone announced would allow the superhero film genre to address more adult themes, like Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” in their time.
The absurd follies of all-digital
Alas, in the land of “Venom”, “Suicide Squad” name, and other “Morbius”, “Kraven the Hunter” is no different: yet another soulless, ugly and generic Blockbuster which proves by A + B that Hollywood is in crisis, incapable of delivering a decent B series, trapped by the all-digital world which allows him all the madness under cocaine: mutant monkeys in “Gladiator II”, Amur tigers and Siberian buffaloes (sic) unleashed in “Kraven”.
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All of this could be at least entertaining if the film wasn’t burdened with incredible preconceptions about the family heritage of violence, like a Shakespearean fresco for dummies. This is perhaps what motivated JC Chandor to make the film, beyond the check, but everything here is reeled in, confined to broad phrases like a Facebook message and even… digitally replayed.
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Because yes, you read correctly: the actors’ faces have become a green background that can be modified in post-production to match new dialogues. The result is horrible on screen, unintentionally funny, it’s almost reassuring. In short, move on unless you’re a shitologist… Besides, the Sony studio itself no longer believes in it: it has given up on the matter, leaving the characters created fallow. However, we were so eager to find the Chameleon (no)…
« Knaven The Hunter » de J.C Chandor, 1/5
