‘Kraven The Hunter’ is getting destroyed by critics: “Strange and sloppy”

Kraven The Hunter, the latest movie adaptation of a Marvel Comics character, is getting a kicking from critics ahead of its release.

The film stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the title character, a big-game hunter who is set on a path of vengeance as the result of a complex relationship with his father, playing by Russell Crowe.

Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) co-stars as Calypso Ezili, a voodoo priestess and Kraven’s love interest and the film is directed by J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, A Most Violent Year).

Kraven The Hunter is the sixth instalment in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, following on from the three Venom films, Morbius and Madame Web. Like many of its predecessors in the franchise, however, it is getting a rough ride from the critics ahead of its cinematic release on Friday (December 13).

In a scathing one-star review, The Independent wrote: “Farewell, Sony’s Spider-Manless Spider-Man universe. You died like you lived: strange and sloppy… the script is profoundly scattered, and there’s such a ruthless amount of re-recorded dialogue inserted that there’s little cohesion between or even within scenes. Requiescat in pace, Sony’s Marvel universe – you really made people’s brains hurt.”

Little White Lies’ review agreed: “It’s all desperately silly,” they wrote. “Perhaps that would be less of an issue if the film’s writers, stars and director leaned into it a little – as in the Venom films – but there’s an air of seriousness about Kraven the Hunter that makes it a slog that can’t be saved by a surprising number of violent executions, including one involving a bear trap.”

Another stinging write-up comes from Indiewire, who say: “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.””

Associated Press note that “two good actors – Fred Hechinger as Kraven’s younger brother and Ariana DeBose as his lawyer-ally – are left marooned in a movie that tumbles and slips to an unsatisfactory end. Is Kraven a hero or a villain? Who cares? Without Spider-Man, what’s really the point, right?”

Empire’s two-star review finds glimmers of light in the action sequences, but shares in many of the same complaints: “The storytelling is ham-fisted, lame-brained and doesn’t really know how to lean into the fun of it all,” they say. “Although the action does have a pleasingly brutal quality that most comic-book flicks don’t have, while there’s the odd smart action lick (a car chase through London, an assault on a monastery) and moments of intentional comedy to go with the unintentional ones.”

Rolling Stone sums up the consensus with their verdict that “this misbegotten project still doesn’t have much reason to exist, especially given it’s a stand-alone entry that, other than a quick shot of a headline from the Daily Bugle and a deep-cut namedrop (the real ones know), doesn’t make a single reference to the webslinger.”

“What you’re left with is something that wants the brand-name recognition of being a Spider-Man project by proxy, but also wants to give you an overly violent, extremely gory vigilante movie that, despite featuring Kraven fighting a weak-tea CGI version of another well-known Marvel villain, has nothing to do with those films. Congratulations on failing twice, we guess?”

In all, Kraven The Hunter currently stands at a 15 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but as it arrives in cinemas on Friday (December 13), audiences will soon have the chance to make up their own minds.

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