Kraven the Hunter

Hollywood is a lot like Government, an organization made up of a mix of talented intelligent people and a plethora of hacks. Within this microcosm of individuals, you’ll see a bizarre mix of ideas and inspiration make its way to the big screen and streaming services. For every one great idea like a new Spider-Man trilogy that culminates in a team-up of all three cinematic Spider-Man actors, there is an entire archive of stupefyingly dumb ideas. The idea to develop an entire franchise of films based on Spider-Man villains without Spider-Man even appearing is an idea so bad it’s a miracle those responsible survived long enough to get these films financed, written, cast, directed, and released without somehow accidentally killing themselves.

Quality notwithstanding, the three Venom films have been relatively successful at the global box office but everything else has been a financial bust. The latest is Kraven the Hunter starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as our bad-ass fur-adorned Ruskie in another would-be audition for James Bond. In the comics, Kraven is a semi-superpowered man driven by the ultimate hunt, to stalk and kill a creature or man deadly enough to kill him in return. In this film, he’s just a guy infected by super-plant serum mixed with lion blood (that actually is comic-accurate), but he goes around killing non-descript Euro-trash mobsters. He's not out to find an adversary worthy of a good death. In his quest to rid the world of mobsters, drug dealers, and killers, he weirdly enough doesn’t go after his own murdering Russian mobster father (Russell Crowe). But father and son will soon come to face a force more deadly when Aleksei Sytsevich AKA The Rhino (Alessandro Nivola) makes a play for the control of the Russian mob. Oh and master assassin The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott) is in there too for some reason. 

So, Kraven the Hunter is not a good movie. With a hacked-up edit amid numerous reshoots, Johnson was able to make The Fall Guy and Nosferatu before this film hit theaters. Kraven is just a mess of action and revenge movie cliches mixed with a couple of decent bloody fight scenes and some genuinely cheap-looking unpolished CGI finale complete with odd over-dubbed dialog. And as bad as this movie is, I have to admit it’s more entertaining than either Madame Web or Morbious. But this film also strays so far from its source material it’s hard to figure out what the point of it all is. If the plan was to introduce these villains so Spider-Man could fight them later, then why are they all presented as heroes? Kraven is an all-out villain. There’s nothing heroic about him as he kills for pleasure and his twisted moral code. But, comic-accurate is not this film’s desire.

When the film comes to its big action-packed climax, it’s just a bunch of CGI chaos that strays far from the excitingly bloody brutal sequences that came before. As cool as it would have been to see Kraven go toe-to-toe against Rhino, the effects work is just comically bad. As CGI water buffalo storm about (seriously, CGI water buffalo), Kraven’s final villain Rhino has the lumpy appearance of a gigantic gray turd. Make no mistake, Nivola is pretty great as Sytsevich in human form. He’s cunningly evil through and through and often a joy to watch chew the scenery. I just never thought I’d prefer to see bald Paul Giamatti in a robot suit, but I’d rather see that than a 10-foot gray Mr. Hankey. 

Again, I can’t deny I wasn’t entertained. Probably not in a way that director J.C. Chandor probably intended, but I was entertained. I caught this in IMAX and didn’t regret it in that sort of innocuous way of watching a train crash where no one got hurt. But given the poor box office return and all of the signaling out of Sony, it sounds like this so-called Spider-Man without Spider-Man universe of films is effectively dead. A bad idea that lasted too many movies and years too long is finally killed off by the best hunter in the Marvel Universe… an apathetic fanbase.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Since we weren’t sent a 4K disc to work with, the best we can do is check out Kraven the Hunter in 1080p Blu-ray. Pressed on a Region Free BD50 disc, the disc is housed in a standard case with a Movies Anywhere compatible digital code with identical slipcover artwork. The disc loads to a static image main menu with standard navigation options and bonus features along the right side of the screen.

Kraven the Hunter stalks home video and positively murders the 1080p format, in a good way for the most part. Most of the film looks pretty damn good. There are enough fight scenes and action sequences with practical effects and real location sets that the 2.39:1 1080p image holds up well. Real make-up effects, costumes, set design, and production design work all look good. Some of the reshot scenes are a tad obvious as they exhibit the telltale blurry nondescript backgrounds, but overall the bulk of the film holds on the format. Where things falter is the massive CGI scenery scenes for the big action sequences in the third act. They weren’t convincing on IMAX, and they certainly aren’t convincing in 1080p. If anything a lot of these CGI creatures appear even more weightless. It’s a case of win-some-lose-some. Colors are nice and bold with healthy skin tones. Black levels are nice and well-resolved lending to some inky tones and a nice sense of depth. Whites are nice and crisp without issue. If we get a 4K copy in at a later date, we’ll certainly compare the two, but until then this is where we’ll land for now. 

On the audio side we have a fairly robust and engaging DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. It’s a bummer we couldn’t get the Atmos on this disc too, but as it, this track holds nicely. Dialog and all of the humorously thick fake accents are clean and clear. When we get to the gunfire and action the mix is nice and attentive giving that chaos plenty of attention. When Kraven gets his hands dirty all of the bloodletting and stabby-stabs are appropriately squishy. Like the video, you can spot the reshoot scenes because the dialog suddenly takes on an inorganic overdub quality. These scenes also tend to squeeze in entirely too much exposition dialog into the shortest amount of time possible and the person speaking is usually off-camera. Surrounds are well-prioritized for a nice engaging and immersive track. Again, if we get a 4K disc to review sent our way we’ll certainly compare to that disc’s Atmos experience.

On the bonus features, we have a pretty basic package of epk-type content. All brief snippets with a lot of fluff. We get a little surface insight into the production but that’s about it. Deleted scenes at a little over four minutes don’t really expand anything or give us much of an idea that was cut or changed through the years-long production.

• Becoming Kraven (HD 5:00)
• Beast Mode: The Stunts of the Hunt (HD 5:15)
• Outtakes and Bloopers (HD 2:36)
• Kraven’s First Hunt: The Direction (HD 5:11)
• Allies & Antagonists: The Killer Cast (HD 5:52)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 4:14 Total)
• Solitary Confinement
• Dmitri’s Birthday
• Sleep Interrupted
• Homecoming
• Kraven’s Dead
• Previews

Kraven the Hunter isn’t a good film. The best I can say is that it’s a the very least better than Morbius and Madame Web, but that’s light praise. Aaron Taylor-Johnson certainly dug all in for this part, but it’s telling that he was able to shoot two films in the time it took to make and release just this one. There are moments where the film clicks and works, and then there are others where it’s just an incomprehensible mess. The contrast between gritty bloody fights and undercooked CGI hoopla is stark. On Blu-ray, Kraven looks pretty good, the live-action sequences fare the best and the 5.1 audio certainly does a fine job keeping pace. Bonus features are a nice assortment offering some insight into the show even if they're brief. At the end of the day, this is a very tough sell and one I can only say is Worth A Look and that’s strictly for the very curious.