Several reboots back, Sony hinted that they were working up a slate of films based on the Sinister Six – a gang of Spider-Man’s early foes who got together in a comic annual in the 1960s and have reformed with fresh line-ups ever since. With Kraven the Hunter, this sub-shingle has made it to six movies, but that includes three Venom pictures and – ahem – Morbius and Madame Web.
Of the original six, Kraven is the only Steve Ditko-Stan Lee villain not to have faced off against Peter Parker in a mainstream Spider-Man film, very possibly because of his Village People pimp endangered species costume design. The look is toned down for this introductory – and possibly extroductory – effort, which is directed by J.C. Chandor, who made his bones with smart current events movies Margin Call and A Most Dangerous Year but has strayed into midlist superheroics.
15-certificate violence and swearing suggests a bid for the Logan or Deadpool audience, but it’s short on leavening humour or elevating tragedy – despite Russell Crowe’s valiant efforts in both directions as Kraven’s manipulative Russian mobster dad.
In this conception, Kraven is a kind of mix between Tarzan and the Punisher. Dosed with voodoo juice after being mauled by a lion in Africa, Sergei Kravinoff has rejected his criminal father and now hunts down and murders ill-doers using only his heightened animal abilities and whatever stabbing implement comes to hand. Rival bad guy Rhino (Alessandro Nivola, slyly creepy) kidnaps Sergei’s wimp half-brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger). He goes barefoot on the warpath to get him back. A foreseeable twist and stray superpowered D listers get in the way but mostly it’s AT-J showing off his gym bod while running through traffic or wildlife.
In comics, Kraven has been depicted with depth in the ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’ storyline and has been a terrific funny foil for Squirrel Girl; in this movie, he’s just another ripped guy who rips up baddies. It’s not an outright disaster, but it doesn’t exactly make you hope Sony will fast-track a Beetle, Molten Man or Gibbon movie.
Kraven The Hunter is out in cinemas now
