‘Kraven The Hunter’ Review – Sony’s Faltering Spider-Man Universe Ends With A Whimper

In the opening moments of Kraven the Hunter, the titular Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) comments on his character’s existence in light of the myths told about him throughout the years. “There’s an ounce of truth in every myth,” he says as he stabs a crime lord in the neck with a large tiger’s tooth. Here he’s talking about himself being a very real entity chasing down evil-doers, but the same can be said of the film itself.

The inclusion of the famous Spider-Man villain has been in the works since the canceled fourth Sam Raimi film, and every iteration of the superhero franchise has tried to find a way to fit him in at some point. After nearly two decades of discussions and more than two years of delays on this particular film, many thought the film itself was just a myth and might never be released. The first footage was shown at CinemaCon in April 2022, and we are finally getting the full picture this weekend. Was it worth the wait?

On almost every front, the answer is no. Especially now with the recent announcement that the Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU) will come to a close with Kraven the Hunter being the last installment. Save for the box office success of some of the Venom films, these expanded stories from the world of Spider-Man have been critical and commercial failures, and its final bow is no different. 

This film boasts an amazing cast featuring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Academy Award winners Ariana DeBose and Russell Crowe, Alessandro Nivola, and Fred Hechinger, who is having one hell of a year in front of the camera. This is his fifth film to be released in 2024. Unfortunately, it feels like these actors are in completely different movies. There’s no chemistry or even tone symmetry to suggest they read the same script or got the same direction from J.C. Chandor. 

Even more egregious are the blatant wide shots where the dialogue has been clearly recorded in post and slapped onto footage of characters saying completely different lines. Of course, this technique is used in almost every movie to fill in some coverage gaps and can work quite well with the right editing. That is not the case here, as some glaring mishaps in the ADR department pull the audience right out of the story.

To the film’s credit, it does deliver on some of its promises. Its gore and swearing content are much higher than your average superhero outing, and these aren’t used for laughs or self-aware gags like many other Marvel films. This is simply a part of the film and enhances the action significantly. If your main character is going to have super speed and strength and have his DNA infused with a lion’s, you’d imagine he might inflict more devastation on his enemies from sheer brute force. 

Another bright spot of Kraven is its relatively insular story. The characters span the globe in a cat-and-mouse game but are only after each other. It’s refreshing for the stakes to be lowered from world-ending destruction, with no mystical MacGuffin to keep out of the wrong hands. It’s Kraven against his enemies, culminating in a climax proportional to the stakes. 

Kraven’s biggest issue is that it does nothing to make its main character interesting enough to care about. Is he materially that different from Jared Leto’s Morbius? They appear to come into similar powers, involving the fusion of their blood with that of an animal. A common failure exists in the characters of Kraven, Morbius, and even Madame Web: the absence of their comic book counterpart, Spider-Man. It’s very difficult for any of these characters to stand alone without him, yet Kraven the Hunter should be the most viable. He’s by far the more widely known of the three, yet he comes away from this film somehow being the least interesting. 

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is upstaged by the always brilliant Christopher Abbott as “The Foreigner,” a man who has been chasing The Hunter for years after an altercation with his family. Every time he appears on screen the film finds some sense of footing that it lacks when he is absent, and forces audiences to ask the question if he would have been better off being the main villain instead of Alessandro Nivola’s Rhino. Abbott brings a level of mystery and enigmatic power that is intoxicating, and it’s a shame we won’t get more of this character going forward. 

The death of the SSU comes with a whimper, with minuscule successes that can’t overcome major technical and writing issues. It does feel like Kraven the Hunter was dumped at the latest date they could muster and is being hung out to dry by the studio as they look to return to the well with a mainline Spider-Man picture in the coming years. After years of planning, delays, and reshoots, it’s hard to find much positive to take away from this movie and it’s unfortunate to see Aaron Taylor-Johnson be let down by Marvel yet again after his short-lived time in the MCU a decade ago.

Kraven The Hunter is currently playing in theaters courtesy of Sony Pictures.