Kraven The Hunter

It's an accident of timing that Kraven The Hunter makes his big screen début 60 years after his first comic-book appearance. As one of Spider-man's numerous enemies he's part of the long-standing and almost inexplicable corporate shenanigans that means we've now had four pictures that could describe themselves as "the second-Spider-man film". The deal covers a suite of characters beyond the blue-and-red clad Peter Parker himself. I'm not going to even try and count them, the usual figure given is more than 900, of which, you know, Kraven is one.

Or more than one. Adding to Aaron Taylor-Johnson's list of superheroic roles is a turn as Sergei Kravinoff. That name for Kraven first appeared in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe in 1986. That was shortly before the character's (first) comic-book death in 1987's Kraven's Last Hunt. These things aren't permanent in comics, or at least not all of them. Kraven isn't Spider-Man's first costumed foe, that honour goes to The Chameleon, but he joins a litany of characters who got their start in those pages who have had their own film.

There's The Punisher, Venom, Madame Web, Morbius, and now, Kraven. To retain the rights there's an obligation to produce a new film every five years and nine months. That nice bit of arithmetic is why Kraven started filming but other calculations might explain why it's taken so long to hit screens. With an initial release date of January 2023 two years on the shelf hasn't done much to allow it to improve. There are plenty of dishes that benefit from some extra time hanging out together, but repeating reheating can make even the best leftovers unappealing.

Kraven's name might be on the posters, but he's not alone in making the transition from printed to projected pictures. There's Calypso, Rhino, and others that might be spoilers if you don't catch the clumsily dropped names. As there are so many Spider-villains kicking about it'd almost be funny that so many are the product of scientific experimentation or laboratory accidents. In another part of the multiverse Stan Lee's continual quest for ways things could go wrong might have led to him becoming a health and safety expert rather than inventing the X-men.

Some scenes appear to have been reconstructed with new dialogue instead of re-shoots, and there's a nagging suspicion that roles that might have been references have been retracted and revoiced. That includes Kraven's personal pilot. Her skill as an aviatrix would seem to include stretching the legs of a CASA C-212 Aviocar to allow it to make it from Siberia to Stanstead without stops. At one point she suggests that they've been flying under the radar, that's almost a given as the aircraft isn't pressurised. That'd also likely slow it from a notional top speed that would mean some of those journeys would require more than a day aloft. I won't rule out that 'Ellie', if I caught it right, might be a daughter of Deadpool, but that's potentially a crossover too far.

That said, there aren't many cross-overs. No real reference to the MCU, nor to Morbius, nor to Madame Web, and for sure a couple of appearances of The Daily Bugle but certainly no Spider-man. Which leaves the frequent issue with basing films on antagonists to Spider-man which is what's the opposite of an opposite? Even the Super Mario movies didn't bother with Waluigi, though Sonic 3 will feature Shadow.

That which is cast across Kraven is a general sense of fatigue. Russell Crowe's accent is often sufficient to distract from the fact that he's cornering the market in playing comic character's dads. From Zeus to Jor-El to this. I don't know how much influence Kenneth Branagh's turns as Russian oligarchs have had but Kraven seems to wish it was as twisty as Tenet. It's potentially as repetitive, and definitely as ponderous.

JC Chandor's past work includes directing some tremendous casts, but as yet nothing as solid as his debut feature Margin Call. Writer Richard Wenk has penned a number of action pictures but the ones that aren't remakes or sequels or adaptations often feel even more derivative. The writing team of Art Marcum and Matt Holloway's career is similar, they did contribute to 2008's Iron Man but most recent work Uncharted did nothing to salvage the reputation of videogame movies.

Among the wider cast it's not always clear if they're all playing on the same stage. Ariana DeBose is in a wry spy mode as a crusading lawyer whose story loops through Kraven's. Fred Hechinger's in danger of being type-cast as somewhat unhinged brothers between this and Gladiator II. Christopher Abbott's The Foreigner is another character that blurs the lines of what counts as a superpower. Lastly, but far from finally, Alessandro Nivola's performance is a product of some fascinating choices that feel of a different age.

Specifically Ang Lee's Hulk, which was attempting to use the duality of Bruce Banner to explore relationships within masculinity and between fathers and sons. Kraven is exploring similar territory but with so much ink spilled and pixels wrangled in the intervening years it's fascinating to explore where they are different and not.

Or it would be, if Kraven was entertaining enough to put up with its weaknesses. It has a montage that borrows from Commando, an ambush in the forest that borrows from Predator, and a scene near the end that's reminiscent of Conan. What it lacks that the others have is a sense of camp, that despite the quantity of action that takes place on safari. It's never entirely clear how often any of the actors were in the same place at the same time, and a line as clumsy as "Gosh, you're really heavy," might have felt weightier on set.

It feels at times as if scenes are missing, though that may just be that there were never points to the plot or perceptible motivations. A super-vision effect feels like hints in a video-game and other character elements seem intended to pay off in subsequent works. Audiences are at least spared having to wait for a scene after the credits, but there's plenty of features of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that should be borrowed first.

It's not clear if it's cowardice, or corporate calculus, but Kraven is so busy painting by numbers that any splashes of originality are covered by wallpaper. There are moments where it seems the only reason anything is happening is because a lady died.

A film doesn't have to have a message, or a moral; indeed if its only motive is mercenary then that's fine, as long as it entertains. Kraven just doesn't. As a protagonist he doesn't seem to have a message, or a moral, and he's apparently freed of mercenary motive by notionally independent wealth. There are references aplenty but a diet of easter eggs is a recipe for nausea. Revenge is a dish best served cold but Kraven is so chopped and warmed over that it's unlikely to sate any appetite.