Kraven the Hunter Review: Aaron Taylor-Johnson Isn't the Problem, but the Film Was Dead on Arrival

Was Kraven the Hunter a good movie? It depends on what you expected it to be. I don't think many people went in expecting an Oscar-worthy film, and there are some things it did right. Unfortunately there just weren't enough of them.

This is a no-spoiler review, and there is honestly not a lot to spoil anyway. I also want to explain why the film was pretty much dead on arrival, which is not the fault of Kraven or Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

Kraven the Hunter's slow first act is my biggest gripe

My biggest gripe with the film, and you can take this how you want, is the intro that sets up Kraven's origin story. My issue is not that they changed it from the comics. It is that the whole first act felt slow and lethargic.

That sluggish opening almost soured the action we finally get to. It also undercuts some of the things the film was trying to set up in that very first act.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson isn't the problem; the script is

Kraven is nowhere near as bad as Morbius and Madame Web. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would put it at a five or six, because there were some likable things about it. Aaron Taylor-Johnson did not phone his role in, although some of the actors around him may have, and he is not the problem either. I feel like I have been able to say that about a few actors recently.

A great performance cannot save a really bad script. I think some of the film's inherent problems are in the dialogue and the writing. At times the plot seemed to go off the rails and feel a bit disconnected. Some of the dialogue is just bad. In fact, "it's irredeemably bad," no matter how good Aaron Taylor-Johnson is or how sincerely he delivers the lines. Some of it is super cheesy, but I wasn't expecting much better going in.

The bloody, R-rated action is where Kraven succeeds

I expected a Kraven film that was bloody and visceral, and in that regard it succeeded. It makes me wish they had done this for the Venom franchise, so we could have had an R-rated Carnage movie. That never happened. As I said a couple of days before this review, the R rating may have come a little too late. They should have thought about it earlier.

The action is good, and the stunts and kills are very satisfying and visceral. That is hardly the film's problem. It depends on what you need Kraven to do for you. I don't think many people expected an intellectual watch, and "I think it's perfect for what it is." It's a B or C grade action film that would be great at home on a night with nothing else on, or on a plane. If you see it in theaters, you'll probably be mildly entertained.

Sony ending its Spider-Man universe hung over the whole film

I think the film had two major hang-ups. The first is that, less than 48 hours before the movie came out, it went viral everywhere that Sony was officially ending its live-action Spider-Man universe. I can't lie: that was in my head the entire time, driving to the theater and sitting there in my seat. This was the last film in that live-action universe.

That news had nothing to do with Kraven itself, and yet it had everything to do with it. The film is a microcosm of the problem with a Spider-Man universe that has no Spider-Man. Why make these films in the first place? Without a Spider-Man and without a connection to the MCU, the wonder about what comes next, how it all ties together and where the story goes is basically killed. You can still make one-off films, but maybe not with a Spider-Man villain and no Spider-Man, because that is how we know that IP.

So was Kraven great? No. Was it terrible? Absolutely not. Was it satisfying in parts, with the kills? Yes. Will I ever rewatch it? Probably not, unless there is nothing else on during a cross-country flight. It seemed very unlikely to succeed in the landscape it was released into. As for spoilers, there are only a couple of main plot points near the end you may or may not see coming. If you are up to date on Spider-Man lore, you might guess them immediately, so they are not the biggest twists in the world.

No post-credits scene signalled Sony knew Kraven was dead on arrival

I think the biggest sign that Sony knew this movie was dead on arrival, and had no plans to save it, is that there is no post-credits scene. That is about as clear as Sony can be. They are not teasing anything because this isn't going anywhere.

As I was finishing this review, the box office tracking had apparently gotten even worse. On a budget of over $100 million, the film had already been projected to open below Madame Web. That is a tragedy, given how expensive these films are to make and how little profit they return. Hollywood still finds ways to take IP nobody knows and make it profitable. A good director, a good script and a good eye for cinematography can make a great film that earns ten times its budget. Then you have $100 million monoliths like this that tank even with the Spider-Man IP behind them. In the end, that is why all of this came to an end.

Sony should hand live-action Spider-Man characters to Marvel

People have pointed out the likely reason Sony never put any Spider-Man in these films, whether Peter Parker, Miles Morales or anyone else from across the Spider-Verse. It seems very clear that Sony's contract with Marvel prevents it. Basically, Marvel keeps Spider-Man for live action, and Sony has to get Marvel's approval to use him in its own live-action films.

I don't know whether Sony or the lawyers are to blame. My basic philosophy has always been that "no one has ever made real strides in life by basically straddling the fence." If Sony let its crown jewel, Spider-Man himself, live at Marvel for live action, the rest of the live-action material should live there too. Sony has its PlayStation game and Spider-Man across many other parts of its entertainment division. When it comes to live action, it should just let Marvel handle it.

If a project isn't in the MCU, it isn't part of the larger story, and I think that is the main weakness every film in this Venom universe suffered from. At the time, I thought Sony might pull off a Hail Mary and somehow get Tom Hardy's Venom to cross over with the MCU and Tom Holland's Spider-Man. I also thought the other characters would be the only ones not on the table for Avengers: Secret Wars, even with Fantastic Four and X-Men characters returning from 20 years ago. I didn't expect to see Morbius, Madame Web or Kraven there. In a world where everything gets canonized, they would be on the outside looking in. That has been the problem since day one.

So my view was that Sony had to put everything live-action Spider-Man into the MCU, including upcoming Miles Morales projects. If it chose not to, and waited three or four years to try the same thing again, I didn't know what else to say, except that it would definitely be Sony. Whatever you think of Kraven, don't let anyone's bad reviews taint your own opinion. If you enjoy it, you don't owe anybody an explanation. We all like different things.

Should Sony hand all of its live-action Spider-Man characters over to Marvel, or can these films work on their own without Spider-Man?