Following the Venom trilogy, Morbius, and Madame Web, Sony is making another attempt to bring some cinematic vitality to the B-list of Spider-Man films with Kraven the Hunter. To that end, Kraven employs director JC Chandor, responsible for such powerful drama films as Margin Call (2011) and All Is Lost (2013), and screenwriter John Wenk, responsible for the explosive film series The Equalizer, at the controls. Unfortunately, these behind-the-camera decisions, while not bad in themselves, made little impact. This movie is available on Afdah video.
Here and there, we see faint flashes of the talents of these two, and therefore Kraven the Hunter is not entirely without merit. However, the talents for drama and action previously shown by Chandor and Wenk are ultimately drowned in the morass of this monotonous production, heading towards painful oblivion.
Shortly after Sergei's mother dies, his father Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe) takes Sergei (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his half-brother Dmitri (Fred "Gladiator II" Hechinger) on a hunting trip to Africa. Mourning is for wimps, says this Russian grumbler, "the law of the jungle applies." But after a hunting duel with an oversized lion, young Sergei's life is on the brink of death. By chance, a nearby local girl, Calypso Yeltsy (Diana Babnikova), gives him her family's special elixir, which unexpectedly mixes with the lion's blood. Despite being clinically dead for at least two minutes, Sergei miraculously recovers and subsequently discovers superhuman powers within himself, including the hunting instincts, strength and speed of the Lion King.
Sergei struggles with the idea of leaving his half-brother Dmitri with his oppressive father who runs a crime empire, but he escapes his father's den in England and settles in Russia. From this base, originally owned by his mother, Sergei goes by the name Kraven and continues to help men like his father disappear from the world for a while. Between bloody jobs, Sergei secretly searches for his half-brother and is constantly worried about him, just like his father. Later, a crime syndicate kidnaps Dmitri to protect him from Kraven, because, as her father says, a person's weakness is usually in those they love. The world's greatest hunter must now bite.
Metal fatigue of the superhero genre after nearly 15 years of success cannot fully describe this slow-bleeding film. The story moves as if one is riding an electric scooter through the woods. The father-brother relationship is weighty on paper but light as a feather on screen. The plot is quick and clear, but also predictable. Finally, the CGI effects seem unbearably rushed at times.