'Kraven the Hunter': All bark and no bite
This Spider-Man spinoff will make you snore louder than a lazy panda
"Kraven The Hunter" is another underwhelming attempt to make a Spider-Man villain movie without Spider-Man.
The film follows Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson)and how he became the legendary Spider-Man foe known as Kraven The Hunter.
After learning his brother has been kidnapped by a drug cartel run by a villain named Rhino, Kraven goes on a hunt to find his sibling and discovers more about his past along the way.
This film was bland, uninteresting and poorly put together. But first, some positives.
Taylor-Johnson ("The Fall Guy," "Bullet Train") does a decent job as the hunter, but I personally think he was miscast. No offense to the actor, but the way he spoke didn't give off the Kraven vibes I was looking for.
I also think body-type wise he was also miscast. Kraven is a nearly 7-foot, 300-pound badass, and Taylor-Johnson version of the character didn't do that for me. Russell Crow was cool as Kraven's father, but he's not in the movie enough to save it for me.
The movie also had decent action scenes but nothing to truly wow me.
This film had a big problem with its directing. There's a lot of cool stuff happening on screen, but I couldn't see any of it. The shots felt super claustrophobic, and weren't given a chance to breathe and showcase what's actually happening -- possibly due to a lack of budget.
I don't normally touch on this, but the recording for dialogue was truly awful.
At one point towards the end of the movie, Kraven shouts "Oh brother," but his mouth doesn't move at all. This told me that this was a rushed, desperate production on Sony's part.
The movie felt very lazily put together, with some obscure Spider-Man references to keep fans docile and happy, which I only rolled my eyes to ... except for (spoiler alert!) seeing Chameleon's comic book outfit. Being a huge Chameleon fan, I was so excited and then disappointed that we'll likely never see this version again, which really depressed me.
I have nothing more to say about this piece of animal dung, which gets a 5/10 for me. It's on the same level of disappointment for me as "Venom: The Last Dance."
I hope Sony finally gets their crap together with the Spider-Man brand and starts giving us projects we want to see such as "Spider-Woman" or a live-action Miles Morales series.
Reviewer Carter Salley is a junior majoring in Media Arts. He is the co-host of Central Michigan Life's pop culture podcast "Raving Geeks."
