On December 19th, the superhero action flick «Kraven the Hunter», based on Marvel comics about the eponymous villain of Russian descent, slinks its way onto Ukrainian cinema screens. Good news — this dud has already flopped spectacularly in the global box office and got a thorough thrashing from critics. Bad news — for some reason, they’re showing it to us on the big screens. In the review below, we’re just bluntly stating what everyone already clearly understood — it’s another flop for Sony in superhero cinema, after which the studio should probably just stop releasing these duds and shut down its feeble universe.
Genre superhero action
Director J.C. Chandor
Cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Russell Crowe, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Christopher Abbott, Alessandro Nivola, Levi Miller
Premiere cinemas
Release Year 2024
Website IMDb, official site
During an unsuccessful hunt on the grassy plains of Tanzania, the son of Russian oligarch Nikolai Kravinov, Sergei, nearly dies. This happens after an unpleasant encounter with the Lion King, which is literally being played in the cinema next door, while buying a ticket for this movie is a fatal mistake. But Sergei manages to heroically survive and even gain superhuman abilities thanks to the lion’s blood, the efforts of a girl named Calypso, and her grandmother’s magical potion.
As he grows older, the boy becomes a muscular, bearded hunk with perfect abs; the type usually cast in shaving cream commercials. He also becomes a nature protector and a fighter for justice, of course — not the villain from the comics, but just a heap of muscles directed towards good. When unknown assailants kidnap his wimpy brother Dmitry with the telling surname Smirdiakov, which better than any review characterizes this movie, Kraven the Hunter embarks on a path of war with powerful enemies.
All you need to know about them — the first one can count to at least two, the second one resembles Rocksteady on heavy drugs. Will Kraven manage to defeat these spawn of clearly unhealthy imagination, and most importantly — finally bury that unbearable Spider-Man Universe?
Well, dear readers, after the second «Venom» and «Morbius» it seemed that Sony’s superhero flicks couldn’t sink any lower, but in 2024, «Madame Web» and «Kraven the Hunter» knocked from the bottom.
From the very first frames, the viewer is bombarded with harsh Russian snows and tattooed cons from the crap country. At the same time, actor Yuri Kolokolnikov, who actively participates in the filmmaking beyond the border, appears on-screen as the boss Semyon Chorny, and today it looks even more inappropriate than Khodchenkova in «The Wolverine» (2013).
However, the swamp performer’s role is episodic, as our brave hero deals with the scum at the first opportunity. The initial scenes, lasting about 8 minutes, were released by Sony on YouTube for free, and from them, you can see the quality of this movie. And also assess how it sounds in the original (spoiler — after this Schwarzenegger’s «what’s your evidence?» will seem like the height of literary art):
Even if you try to abstract from the inherently Russian passions, the film still doesn’t withstand any criticism. It’s really as bad as you could imagine.
For a superhero spectacle, «Kraven the Hunter» is surprisingly slow, non-dynamic, heavily dialogue. Endless chatter is completely empty and carries no meaningful weight, and the actors lazily deliver their silly lines with such stone-faced expressions, as if each was instructed to play the Thing from «Fantastic Four».
With such conditions, the organizers of the «Golden Raspberry» will have to be very generous to have enough «awards» for everyone. And within the franchise for the current year — from the absolutely detached Dakota Johnson to the utterly indifferent Russell Crowe, who simply phones it in (although this time without the clownery from «Thor», so thanks for that).
In rare moments, the creators remember that they are actually filming a movie in a genre where brave justice fighters must incessantly run, jump, and beat villainous faces, but it doesn’t get any better.
If action scenes here are a rarity, quality ones have long left the chat, somewhere around «Morbius», if not earlier. They lack any directorial thought, are utterly incapable of captivating, and to endure the local CGI, it wouldn’t hurt to bring eye drops to the session to ease the burn. Place them next to the energy drink, which might just keep you from falling asleep.
Neither the presence on screen of a hint of bloody brutality nor the obvious nod to Spidey also save the shameful situation. The Rhino is so cringy that next to him, the adolescent from «Romulus» would seem like an adequate final monster. All this mess is supported by the usual clichéd story about the making of yet another contender for the audience’s love, which they stamped out in packs in the 2000s.
The filming process probably looked something like they showed in the satirical show «The Franchise» — complete chaos and madness on the set. Not to mention the constant delays in release; it seems like the bosses at Sony deliberately postponed the next flop as much as possible.
No idea how director J.C. Chandor, who previously made not just normal but actually pretty decent flicks like the survival drama «All Is Lost» (2013) with the unmatched Robert Redford, managed to get himself into this mess. Talking about this utterly helpless movie is like pushing a corpse — pointless and futile. The folks at Sony have long conditioned us to expect nothing but cringe. But to think that watching it would involve only suffering and boredom — life did not prepare us for such cinematic torture.
