The hunt is still on for a Sony Marvel hit after Kraven

Everyone knows Sony’s little corner of the Marvel universe has been struggling, but I keep holding out hope that they right the ship. Kraven the Hunter is better than the last couple duds (though it couldn’t possibly be any worse), and while it has some good action and ratchets up the blood for a more adult-themed superhero flick, it still has flaws.

Kraven is portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a vigilante, the “best hunter in the world,” who hunts down the worst of the worst bad guys and mercilessly kills them. The film opens with Kraven getting arrested in a remote Russian prison, purposefully so as we soon learn, in order to take out his latest target, a Russian arms dealer being held in the prison. The action is quick and bloody from the outset, and I started to think that Sony finally had a hit on their hands, but those hopes were quickly dashed. We next get a (long, and at times boring) flashback to Kraven’s childhood, where he and his younger, “softer” brother Dmitri were raised by their father Nikolai (Russell Crowe), who praised manliness and strength above all else. We get Kraven’s origin story here, where and how he gets his powers. Nikolai is himself a gangster, so when we finally get caught back up to present day, we learn that the person’s (who Kraven just killed in prison) death has left a vacuum in the criminal underworld, a hole that Nikolai wants to fill. But he’ll have competition. Another evil guy, a supervillain who goes by the name of Rhino, also wants a controlling hand, and in order to get a handle on Nikolai, he kidnaps Dmitri and sends an assassin after Kraven. Bloodshed ensues.

The fight scenes are pretty decent, even if some of the car scenes are obnoxiously heavy with not-that-great CGI, but the dialogue is subpar to downright bad, and there are glaringly huge holes in the story that are too distracting to ignore. In the beginning, Kraven kills anyone who hears his name, until suddenly halfway through the movie, everyone in the world has heard of Kraven. Did I miss something? The twists are heralded a mile away, contributing to a lack of excitement when they are revealed. All in all, it is a step in the right direction, but Sony still has a long way to go to equal what Marvel has accomplished in their own shared universe. ★★½