127 min | R | December 13, 2024 | Sony Pictures
Sony’s Spider-Man Universe dies the death it deserved. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays a Marvel villain nobody asked to see as a hero. J.C. Chandor deserves better. Everyone deserves better.
Sergei Kravinoff is the son of a Russian crime lord. As a teenager he is mauled by a lion and saved by a mystical healer whose potion gives him animal-like abilities. He becomes Kraven the Hunter. He hunts criminals instead of animals. He has daddy issues. He has a love interest. He has a half-brother who becomes a villain. J.C. Chandor directs an origin story for a Spider-Man villain who does not fight Spider-Man and exists in a universe where Spider-Man is referenced but never present. The film follows the same template that has failed Sony repeatedly. Take a character from Spider-Man’s rogues gallery. Remove Spider-Man. Add a tragic backstory. Hope the audience cares. The audience does not care.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Kraven with a physical commitment that the film squanders. He is muscular and intense and moves like a predator and none of it matters because the script gives him nothing to play except generic revenge motivation. Taylor-Johnson has shown range in other films. This is not one of them. Russell Crowe plays Nikolai Kravinoff, the crime lord father, with a Russian accent and a fur coat and whatever dignity he can retain. Ariana DeBose plays Calypso, a prosecutor and love interest whose character exists to look at Kraven with concern. Fred Hechinger plays Dmitri, Kraven’s half-brother, with the manic energy of an actor trying to inject life into dead material. Alessandro Nivola plays the Rhino with a physical transformation that deserves a better film.
Chandor directed Margin Call and A Most Violent Year and All Is Lost. He is a serious filmmaker who makes thoughtful films about desperate people. Nothing in his career suggests he was the right choice for this material and nothing in the film contradicts that assessment. The action sequences are staged with competence and filmed with the same dark, desaturated palette that has plagued Sony’s Marvel films. The visual effects are adequate. The practical stunt work is occasionally impressive. The production design creates environments that exist to be destroyed in fight sequences. The score is forgettable. The editing cannot solve the fundamental problem that the story has no reason to exist.
Sony’s Spider-Man Universe began with Venom in 2018 and ends here with a whimper. Morbius. Madame Web. Venom sequels of diminishing returns. And now Kraven. The strategy was always bankrupt. These characters exist in relation to Spider-Man. Without him they are villains without heroes, rogues without a gallery, supporting players promoted to leads they cannot carry. Chandor took the job and delivered a professional product and the professional product is lifeless. The R rating suggests ambition. The execution delivers nothing that the rating promises. This is the final film in a failed experiment and it fails exactly the way the experiment always suggested it would.