Yesterday the news came that Sony was canceling its spin-off film universe of Spider-Man villains in the future just focus on the Marvel wall crawler wants.
Today, Kraven the Hunter, the last film from the so-called Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU), was released in cinemas. The fact that we are spared from this kind of work is the only good thing that can be said about the blockbuster.
Kraven the Hunter fails as a superhero blockbuster on every level
The Marvel film by JC Chandor (Triple Frontier) presents itself as bland collection of superhero clichésas we have now been presented countless times. The typical origin story, how Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) becomes the overpowering and later Spider-Man villain Kraven the Hunter, consists of the usual family conflict – only this time slightly varied as a Russian gangster empire story with an absurdity nasty Russell Crowe as a grumbling patriarch monster.
Otherwise, the randomly put together film reels off the usual stations like the female sidekick (an extremely wasted Ariana DeBose) and the various villains so that everything leads to the big final fight. Alessandro Nivola as the antagonist Rhino would almost be worth a separate text, but at least his grotesque, laughable performance should still a bit of entertainment value for otherwise head-shaking Marvel fans.
Alongside Fred Hechinger as Dmitri Smerdyakov, who aspires to a career as a nightclub singer and his versions of Harry Styles’ Sign of the Times and Black Sabbaths Changes can give the best.
At the same time, Kraven the Hunter’s long production time is noticeable, with many re-shoots and start postponements every second. The tone of the film sometimes varies from scene to scene. A funny, casually interspersed one-liner is followed by a serious argument and it always seems as if some actors were not even on set together during the shared moments.
Sometimes the familiar SSU flair even comes into play when dialogues are recited so trashily and clumsily that it’s just unintentionally funny.
Sony’s superhero universe is just ridiculous after Morbius, Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter
According to Morbius (“It’s Morbin’ Time!”) and Madame Web (“He was in the Amazon with my mother when she was researching spiders shortly before her death”), Kraven the Hunter is the next film from Sony’s Marvel universe that can only pass as a meme template.
For the obvious gag corruption of the title (“Kraven? More like kravin’ (craving) a better movie!”), the Marvel blockbuster comes with its own bizarre running gags. Anyone who turns it into a drinking game, how Kraven often mentions that he is a hunterends up in the eternal hunting grounds at the end of the film.
The supporting role of Christopher Abbott (Possessor) as an evil henchman called The Foreigner is also completely confusing. He is occasionally thrown into scenes in which his character slowly counts to three in order to deceive and eliminate opponents with illusions. After the editing, no one involved probably knew why this maneuver was repeated four or five times in Kraven the Hunter.
The Marvel blockbuster “surprises” and irritates every minute with such hair-raising interludes. At some point even they will fall poorly animated CGI animals at Playstation 2 graphics level hardly unusual anymore.
In addition to the three Venom films with Tom Hardy, which were able to quickly transform their trash spectacle factor into a trademark, the SSU with Kraven the Hunter ends the way it has all along: as an embarrassing total failure, the at most as an involuntary target for Internet memes can be burned and otherwise be immediately forgotten by everyone in front of and on the screen.