In Sony Pictures’ action-adventure film Kraven the Hunter, the titular character is a child of the wild with the guile and gusto to “hunt down people” like few others. Kraven can run like the wind, climb up and down any structure like a wild cat, and cover large distances with his massive stride. He has a high sensitivity to sound and smell as well as an incredible vision that allows him to spot objects from miles away.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a perfect physical embodiment of Kraven/Sergei Kravinoff, a muscular man who takes an oath to protect wild animals from poachers after a brutal encounter with a lion when he was young. But for all of his physicality, this character is not properly fleshed out.
The makers seem to be unsure of where to place the character within the grossly underdeveloped Spider-Man Cinematic Universe. He is neither a traditional superhero nor a flat-out villain. At one point, his own brother Dmitri Kravinoff (Fred Hechinger) tells Kraven that he is worse than their father, and he replies, “No, I am better because I have a code.”
At another point, a character performs CPR on Kraven before yelling, “Legends do not die. Come back, Kraven.” This dramatic moment feels out of place and lacks emotional impact. It is hard to care for the myth-building because it feels rushed in a film with muted antagonists. The enemies Kraven deals with (Christopher Abbot’s the Foreigner and Alessandro Nivola’s Rhino) are as generic as they come, similar to the random henchman you see in Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal’s films.
Writer-director JC Chandor spends plenty of time establishing the mysterious powers of the Foreigner and Rhino in a straightforward revenge plot, but they remain unidimensional. Instead, the film would have benefited greatly from a deeper exploration of the relationships between Kraven and Calypso Ezili, as well as between Kraven and his volatile father, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe).
Kraven the Hunter is fast-paced and has some well-executed fight sequences, such as one where Taylor-Johnson takes down three assassins on a speeding car, and stunning visuals like a horde of buffalos screaming past a stationary Sergei. However, the action adds little to the plot or characterisation, which becomes inadequate to sustain our interest for two hours. There is also some drama that delves into Kraven’s troubled relationship with his father (Crowe), a crime lord who kills callously, believes humans should be predatory, and teaches his sons to embrace their animalistic instincts.
However, the drama does very little to up the stakes of a film, which settles for easy pleasures and seldom rises above mere surface-level thrills. There are also some continuity issues that stand out like a sore thumb because of how fast the flashbacks alternate between the present-day portions. Levi Miller and Fred Hechinger look almost identical as young Kraven and Dmitri, respectively. However, when they grow up, Taylor-Johnson looks significantly older than Hechinger. You cannot put the incongruity down to the genetic transformations that Kraven undergoes at some point in the story, either. It is jarring and takes away from the film’s believability.
Kraven the Hunter’s greatest misstep lies in squandering the potential of its talented cast. Taylor-Johnson, Crowe, and DeBose, despite their individual strengths, are confined to thinly written roles. There is also a last-ditch attempt to pull off a shocking revelation and redeem the film, but even this fails because of how forced it feels. Ironically, flimsy character development is a major issue in a film that has a lot to say about the transformation of a man and his connection to the wilderness. You can hunt, scale buildings with your bare hands, and jump all you want, but where does that even get you?
Director: JC Chandor
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Russell Crowe
Rating : 1.5/5