Unintentionally hilarious
Kraven the Hunter is a difficult film to review because depending on how you’re going into this one, will determine what you’ll get out of this. If you know anything about Kraven, comic books or Spider-Man lore, run away and leave this abomination behind. However, if you’re a newbie to this character, or just want an unintentionally hilarious movie to laugh at the whole way through, this may end up as one of the better comedies of the year.
If you do decide to watch this one though, do be sure not to apply any sort of logic, thought or critique toward any part of this movie because if you do, you’ll notice what an absolute trainwreck this film is.
It doesn’t help that the two years of delays, and various different ideas floated around and jammed into the screenplay, cause this film to be a complete tonal disaster. That, coupled with the clunky dialogue, exposition-heavy scenes and chaotic action just piles on the misery for this grizzled hunter to deal with. In fact, this feels like it would fit right at home alongside Affleck’s Daredevil, Halle Berry’s Catwoman or Reynold’s Green Lantern. Alas, the superhero genre has come a long way since then, but this movie is determined to drag us back into the dark ages through hell or high water.
The story here deviates wildly from the comic books, and instead of being a big-game hunter, Kraven is instead one with the animals. This animal-loving miscreant is no longer a villain but instead an anti-hero looking to dish out vigilante justice against poachers and big-game hunters.
The protagonist here is Sergei Kravinoff, aka Kraven the Hunter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who, while out on a hunting trip with his dad Nikolai and brother Dmitri, ends up mauled by a lion. However, he gains supernatural abilities thanks to a girl called Calypso giving him a special potion, which allows him to communicate with animals and adopt superhuman strength and agility.
Determined to tread a different path to his father, who runs a criminal empire, he sets out to stop hunters from hunting. However, when the Foreigner and the Rhino step into the mix, things turn complicated quickly as the hunter becomes the hunted.
The set-up itself is not too bad and if there’s one bright spark here, it comes from Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He’s at least competent enough to bring this big-game hunter to life with a decent performance, and he does a good job with the limited script given to him. Likewise, Russell Crowe chews up the scenery as his father, Nikolai. These two are really good, and at least the film has these two to try and drag it from the destined pit of obscurity it’ll end up in within a couple of months.
The action isn’t bad here, but it also slips up with over-used, poorly rendered CGI which is honestly horrendous at times. The movie uses a number of different CGI animals and it doesn’t help that at times, they get up close and personal with the camera. There, you really see the it really shows off the ugliness up close and personal. There’s one scene involving spiders which feels like an early 90’s B-movie, while another involving buffalo is pretty horrific too.
But beyond all of that, action for action sake is not fun unless there’s a compelling story behind it. When it comes to Kraven, that story is a complete mess, to say the least, with unnecessary additional elements added in and a bloated run-time that very easily could have been reduced entirely. The Foreigner is pointless in the grand scheme of things, taking precious time away from the Rhino, who has zero characterisation beyond an exposition-heavy scene briefly discussing his past.
The editing itself is also horrendous. There’s clearly been a serious hack job done in the editing suite and it becomes very noticeable with the pacing, which swings wildly between being frantic and pulsating, across to a dull slog. There’s a flashback that goes on for about 25 minutes that could have been cut completely, because directly after this sequence, characters spout exposition detailing what we’ve literally just seen. Remember that scene from Madame Web’s trailer about the spiders in the Amazon rainforest? Yeah, Kraven has moments like that all the way through.
There’s also a good amount of ADR voicing added in last minute too and some of it is not subtle. At times the characters will be completely expressionless and a voice will chime in with some emotion-clad sentence that’s supposed to be their voice but just feels like bad dubbing. At one point late on, the film zooms into Kraven’s face, who’s shocked as a helicopter draws near. Without moving his lips, he utters “gotta be kidding me” and it completely takes you out the moment.
The tone is another point worth noting here too. Kraven seems so unsure of the sort of movie it wants to be that it actually plays right into the comedy genre. In fact, through the absolute sheer stupidity of it all, Kraven is utterly hilarious. My cinema burst out laughing when Rhino revealed his true look, and multiple times during the clunky dialogue and deadpan delivery, you’ll find yourself chuckling or laughing at this one.
What makes this all the more amusing though is that this film is trying so hard to be serious and polish up this abomination, and you can definitely see the intent here. It’s unfortunate then that this film is a complete Frankenstein’s monster of different ideas and elements that work about as effectively as every Sony film before it has.
When this hits streaming, it’s definitely worth a watch for comedy purposes alone. This is up there with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation for the way dialogue is delivered and the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Paying money to see it in the cinema though? Yeah, that’s a tough ask for what we end up with here. If you’re going into this expecting a dramatic or thrilling movie, you’ll be left kraven a much better movie. However, if you can accept that this train wreck flies off the rails all the way to comedy town, and just accept that this is a hilarious mess, you might somehow, miraculously, find enough here to enjoy.
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Verdict - 4/10
4/10