By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
For years, Sony has attempted to build up its own superhero cinematic universe of Spider-Man villains without ever mentioning Spider-Man, and with the exception of Venom, it was one failure after another. Finally, following the release of Kraven the Hunter, the experiment has come to an end. That final, misguided movie that was made for seemingly no one is now on Netflix, where, oddly, it became the top film on the largest streaming service in the world.
Kraven’s First And Last Hunt
When Kraven the Hunter was announced, fans were wondering what story it could possibly be adapting, as the villain’s greatest story, “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” involves Spider-Man to such an extent it’s impossible to adapt without the wall-crawler. Turns out, the film instead is centered on the rise of Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s antihero as he rebels against his father, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe, in another doomed superhero film), a ruthless crime lord, and gets caught in a war to control Russia’s criminal underground. By his side is Calypso (Ariana DeBose), a Voodoo Priestess who gave Kraven superhuman powers as a young boy, and sometimes his brother, The Chameleon (Fred Hechinger).
It’s a standard Sony superhero movie that spends too much time establishing the character and not nearly enough letting the audience see them in action. Part of the problem with Kraven the Hunter is that the character has no real powers, instead relying on his skills, but the film gives him animal-based superhuman strength, durability, and agility to the point he can parkour up sheer walls. He’s not even the only character the film struggles to adapt; the Chameleon’s face-changing powers look like a SyFy original from 2005, and then there’s the real villains of the movie.
One Of Sony’s Better Superhero Movies
Kraven the Hunter makes the deepest pull yet from Spide-rMan’s roster of villains by bringing The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott) to the big screen. This version is a seemingly superpowered assassin and not the strategic master spy of Marvel comics. Then there’s the Rhino (Alessandro Nivola), a perennial joke of a villain that only exists to get beaten up, but there, he’s a legit threat with more intelligence and charm than any of his comic appearances, which works, but it’s still the Rhino as the big bad.
Despite all the strange choices in adapting this odd corner of the Spider-Man comics to the big screen, Kraven the Hunter is, on its own merits, not a horrible film. Bolstered by an R-rating that lets Aaron Taylor-Johnson stab nameless thugs and even bite off a nose or two, it’s darker and grittier than any of Sony’s other superhero films. It was also the least successful, finally hitting theaters in December 2024, after a delay of over a year, only to earn less money ($62 million) than Madame Web.
Compared to Madame Web, Morbius, and Venom: The Last Dance, Kraven the Hunter is a well-crafted film that, shockingly for most of Sony’s movies, even has action scenes that take place during the day. It’s not great, but now that it’s removed from the cost of a ticket and driving to the theater, audiences are more willing to give it a chance, and who knows, it might even become another Aaron Taylor-Johnson cult classic in a few years.
Kraven the Hunter is now on Netflix.
