As a teenager Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) survived a lion attack when he was given a voodoo potion by a mysterious girl named Calypso (Ariana DeBose). Granted with animal like superhuman powers he becomes the greatest hunter on the planet, but his prey are poachers and gangsters. 

Kraven The Hunter will likely be the final film in Sony’s disastrous attempt to make a universe from Spider-Man’s rogue gallery. This entry into the universe could probably be argued as the best alongside the original Venom movie. But that is an incredibly low bar. Morbius and Madame Web were absolutely dire. Whilst Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Venom: The Last Dance offered decreasing returns to the sub-par original film. The only thing that keeps Kraven The Hunter from sinking without trace is Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s committed performance and Russell Crowe’s unintentionally comical one. 

Possibly one of the most difficult to swallow facets of the film is that Sergei/Kraven is portrayed here as an anti-hero with the majority of his most evil traits from the comics given to his father Nikolai (Russell Crowe). Kraven and his younger half-brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) both hate their father who constantly talks of strength and is obsessed with big game hunting. So when Sergei becomes strong enough to leave he does so. Returning to Siberia to live with the animals and kill poachers. Later in life he will head to London where Calypso is now a lawyer and his father and brother are threatened by another gangster known as The Rhino (Alessandro Nivola). 

So for non comics fans interested in why this is confusing. We have Kraven and Calypso, who are supervillains in the comics, fighting against fellow supervillains the Rhino and his henchman The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott) to save Dmitri (who you will not be shocked to learn is also a supervillain in the comics). And all of this must happen without Spider-Man because of Sony’s contract with Marvel. 

Honestly it is surreal to say the least. 

What works? Taylor-Johnson looks the part and is absolutely doing his level best as this anti-hero version of Kraven. Russell Crowe, who has recently done an Italian accent (The Pope’s Exorcist) and a Greek accent (Thor: Love And Thunder) here has lots of fun with a Russian one. There are a couple of ok action sequences – a prison break and a car chase through London. The brutal fight sequences. 

What does not work? The ludicrous plot starts as palatable but becomes ridiculous in the final third. The portrayal of The Rhino is absolutely risible and also ensures we have a terrible looking CGI final fight. The story struggles so badly to be coherent there are clearly noticeable lines dubbed in to help with explanation. When a close up conversation cuts to a long shot and features an extra line or two of dialogue before cutting back to close up you know things are going wrong. The weird CGI that tries to make Dmitri really tiny next to everyone else. 

Director J. C. Chandor began his career delivering superb low budget films Margin Call, All Is Lost and A Most Violent Year. His step up to superhero blockbuster has failed. 

If you go in with low expectations it will be fine thanks in the main to Taylor-Johnson and Crowe.