On December 13, 2023, Sony Pictures released its latest and final live action Marvel movie; Kraven the Hunter. While this film continues the streak of Sony’s utter failure in using Marvel IPs, the movie is so enjoyable that it completely makes up for the void of content.
The movie follows ‘Kraven’, also known as the Hunter, who’s played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He is the son of a wealthy member of the Russian mafia, and due to conflicts between a rival mafia and his father, Kraven is led down a path that eventually leads him to becoming the world’s greatest hunter. If that sounded incredibly convoluted, let it be known that watching the movie does not make it better.
While this movie is not worse than Madame Web, Sony’s last live action Marvel disaster, it is certainly not to be considered good. The dialogue comes off forced and even corny at times, the CGI constantly manages to look out of place and somewhat goofy, and none of the characters feel like they’re being taken seriously. As if those errors weren’t bad enough, the pacing was easily the roughest part of the movie to sit through. “A lot of exposition which can be nice sometimes,” explains Mary Kerr, Junior at Oakdale, “But for something that we don’t care about and since the exposition is boring, it doesn’t really apply.”
The end of the movie is just as disastrous as the rest of it. A major part of the movie’s ending involves the fact that, by killing other people, Kraven is supposedly just as bad as his mafia-associated father. This idea is, to put it bluntly, shoved down your throat at the end and completely overlooks the reasons why Kraven was killing people. “And only at the very end, his brother tells him, ‘you’re just like our father,’” comments Xen Wu, a senior at Oakdale. “And, no. He’s not. His brother says his morals are fake, but they’re really not.” While Kraven killed people who were doing corrupt things to make money, his father killed others to make himself richer. By equating the two, the moral comes off not only as weaker, but makes the ending of the movie completely nonsensical and lack all of its intended weight.
The big difference between this movie and other recent attempts from Sony’s live action marvel movies is that this film was incredibly enjoyable to watch. It’s so outlandish, and funny, and illogical even though it never intended to be. It felt like it was desperately trying to be taken seriously, but with all of the messy storytelling, unnatural dialogue, and exaggerated fight scenes the movie feels like it’s meant to be a joke. There were fight scenes that made the viewer feel pumped, not because they’re well choreographed, but because what happened during them was so hyperbolic, someone watching can’t help but enjoy it.
There is no character that exemplifies this movie’s problems, and also its strengths, more than the Rhino played by Alessandro Nivola. In an interview with Forbes, Nivola mentions he wanted to find the “balance of humor and menace that the tone of the movie required,” and he did so with flying colors. Some of the most iconic lines and moments of the movie are from him, and the Rhino seems like one of the only characters that leans into the insanity rather than take the movie incredibly seriously.
Unfortunately, Sony will no longer be producing live-action marvel movies, as announced shortly before the release of Kraven the Hunter. Sony left with a bang however, as this film is so entertaining that it’s worth watching even once just to have a good laugh.
