After multiple delays and several, shall we say, hiccups for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe of movies, Kraven the Hunter arrives in theaters this weekend. Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the Spidey villain, and directed by JC Chandor, this film likely serves as a swan song for the whole Sony universe, other than Spider-Man movies. So with the critics reviews now here, is Kraven’s last hunt a success? Or has the hunter become the hunted?
In his review at Indiewire, David Ehrlich calls the film “monumentally goofy” as well as “breathtakingly silly” and more damningly, “Immune to fan response, impervious to quality control, and so broadly unencumbered by its place in a shared universe that most of its scenes don’t even feel like they take place in the same film, Kraven the Hunter might be very, very bad (and by ‘might be’ I mean ‘almost objectively is’), but the more relevant point is that it feels like it was made by people who have no idea what today’s audiences might consider as ‘good.'”
That’s a big yikes, but surely other reviews are better? The Hollywood Reporter calls the movie “turgid” adding that, “Mostly, the drab-looking, sluggish movie seems to exist to lay groundwork for future installments in which over-qualified actors like [Ariana] DeBose and [Fred] Hechinger might be given more to do and Kraven’s vigilantism might have a clearer sense of purpose.” Meanwhile, Variety calls Kraven “derivative” and is downright dismal on Kraven himself, noting that, “The actor who doesn’t steal scenes is Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I’m always holding out for this dude… But despite the fact that he was recently (falsely) rumored to have won the role of James Bond, I’m starting to think that Taylor-Johnson lacks the X factor.”
Surely Polygon liked it though, right? Reviewer Siddhant Adlakha says the movie is “utterly perplexing” and “a largely joyless affair, and Chandor can’t seem to decide on a dramatic or comedic tone, let alone a blend of the two. Taylor-Johnson often stands around delivering lines that seem intended to be catchphrases, but he does so with all the determination of someone who loathes the material… practically every actor in the cast is entirely checked out. Rarely has a superhero movie featured this many talented performers phoning it in. But with such bland material, can you blame them?”
Meanwhile, Empire gives the movie two stars, and adds, “This all feels a long way from Chandor’s glory days of Margin Call and All Is Lost. Save the occasional flourish, Kraven The Hunter is limp, tired, uninvolving superhero fare.”
It’s up to Slashfilm, then, to like the movie, calling it “stupid but entertaining,” in the headline but… Hold on. In the piece itself, the writer says, “the film around the title hero is hot garbage… an incoherent, incompetent gallimaufry of worn-down superhero tropes that have been hastily shoved toward an audience the filmmakers know they’ve long ago lost. The writing is bad. The editing is bad. In some scenes, one cannot understand the dialogue through a combination of bad sound and Moose-and-Squirrel-level Russian accents.”
And The Daily Beast goes hardest of all, saying that Kraven “just assassinated the superhero genre… an attempt at brand extension that never justifies its stand-alone existence and does lasting harm to the franchise it aims to bolster.”
See you at the movies! Kraven the Hunter hits theaters on December 13, 2024.
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