What makes a good villain?
It’s a question as old as fiction itself, and it’s a fascinating one. In the most blunt and broad terms, an antagonist is the primary obstacle between the protagonist and their goal. However, the devil is truly in the details when it comes to crafting a great cinematic antagonist, and there are countless answers to the question of what makes a compelling villain. Over the years, hundreds of films have found their own unique, subjective answers to this question, creating villains that serve their stories and enhance them in the process. The interesting thing about Sony’s Marvel-adjacent Spider-Man villain films from the past eight years is that they aren’t actually about villains at all.
Every one of these films, from the Venom trilogy to Morbius to Madame Web and the newly released Kraven the Hunter, spends plenty of time proclaiming that its titular character is a villain. In fact, the tagline for Kraven the Hunter boldly states, “Villains aren’t born, they’re made.” Yet, these films consistently fail to show any genuine interest in exploring their characters as actual villains. While it’s true that everyone can be the protagonist of their own story, these characters are almost entirely unrecognizable from their antagonistic comic book counterparts. Their sharp edges have been meticulously sanded down for easier consumption, turning Spider-Man’s once-memorable rogues into painfully mundane and generic heroes. And among this would-be franchise, Kraven the Hunter may be the guiltiest offender yet.
Lest you think this is some sort of grievance I hold against Kraven the Hunter for making changes to its source material, let me assure you that I have no horse in this race. While there have been some truly great comic book stories featuring Kraven, I don’t particularly care about him as a character. Taking creative liberties in an admittedly imbecilic Kraven spinoff film isn’t something I take issue with; in fact, I’d outright encourage it. However, describing anything that happens in Kraven the Hunter with an adjective like creative feels like an insult to the intelligence of the audience.
Kraven the Hunter is an abysmal film, feeling as though it was market-tested to death, resulting in an uninspired, soulless product devoid of passion or enthusiasm. It’s a would-be superhero blockbuster featuring a half-dozen comic book characters, each reduced to the most lackluster, unimaginative versions of themselves. If that sounds appealing to you, then congratulations—you’ve hit the jackpot.
Kraven isn’t the ruthless hunter fans might expect; instead, he’s reimagined as a Robin Hood-esque eco-warrior living in a literal greenhouse. The Rhino is no longer a man in a rhino suit but a mob boss with a skin condition. And the Chameleon? Far from a shapeshifter, he’s just a guy who can mimic voices, leading to a laughably absurd moment where someone earnestly claims, “He mimics voices perfectly… like a chameleon.”
This lack of imagination pervades every facet of the movie. From the storytelling and direction to the performances, editing, and even the score, Kraven the Hunter feels hopelessly compromised and entirely devoid of purpose. It’s a cinematic misfire that epitomizes a franchise running on fumes.
Nowhere is Kraven the Hunter’s lack of direction more evident than in its unnecessarily bloated runtime. While Sony’s previous entries in this franchise at least had the courtesy to keep things concise, Kraven drags on for a punishing two hours and fifteen minutes—though it feels twice as long.
A significant contributor to this slog is the atrocious editing, which utterly fails to establish any sense of momentum from one shot to the next, let alone from scene to scene. Much of the film’s structure relies on abrupt, jarring cuts that are only made worse by clumsy ADR attempts to patch the gaps. The result is a disjointed, chaotic experience where it feels like the very seams of the film are unraveling before your eyes.
Another glaring issue with Kraven the Hunter lies in its convoluted and overly expository script, which boasts no fewer than four credited writers (including director J.C. Chandor). These writers seem to operate under the misguided belief that drowning the audience in exposition equates to building meaningful emotional connections. Nowhere is this more evident than in the film’s first act, which subjects viewers to an agonizing thirty-minute flashback sequence.
While ostensibly meant to establish Kraven’s origin story and relationships with his father (a Russian-accented Russell Crowe) and brother, the flashback accomplishes little more than wasting time. It bombards the audience with information, but without any emotional weight or resonance, leaving these revelations feeling hollow and inconsequential to the broader narrative.
The missteps continue forty-five minutes into the film, where we are reintroduced to Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s adult Kraven for a second time. This redundant scene is a stark reminder of how easily the film could have simply started there, sparing viewers the tedium of the earlier exposition dump and losing nothing of narrative substance.
From this point, the story careens wildly, showing all the focus and restraint of a pent-up teenager, leaping from one disjointed action sequence to another. The marketing for Kraven the Hunter leaned heavily on its promise of grisly, R-rated action, and while the film does technically deliver on this, the execution leaves much to be desired. Not a single moment of the action feels impactful or memorable.
This shortfall is evident from the very opening sequence—which, as a testament to Sony’s desperation, is available to watch on YouTube right now. The action is staged, shot, and edited in a manner so chaotic and incoherent that it borders on illegibility. Each action beat lacks resonance, as the film’s editing either rushes through them without pause or stumbles awkwardly in its attempts to convey intensity. The result is a barrage of moments that feel more like a checklist than an engaging, visceral experience.
There are at least half a dozen sequences in Kraven the Hunter where Kraven infiltrates a location and takes out a group of henchmen one by one. The problem is, every single one of these moments feels interchangeable with the last, making the action feel monotonous and lifeless. Each shot and action is so poorly connected to the one before it that the sequences fail to build any real tension or excitement. Instead of coming together as cohesive action setpieces, they feel more like a disconnected series of random shots that the filmmakers attempted to piece together in the editing room.
But surely Kraven the Hunter has some standout performances, right? With Aaron Taylor-Johnson starring alongside Academy Award-winning actors like Russell Crowe and Ariana DeBose, you’d expect something noteworthy to emerge. Unfortunately, the mangled editing again sabotages any chance of salvaging these performances. So many scenes where two characters are simply sitting together and talking feel disjointed, as though every line from each actor was taken from a different shot. The audio quality, delivery, and emphasis vary so wildly that it feels like the actors aren’t interacting with each other at all. Instead, it seems like their brains are melting mid-sentence. A prime example of this is the hilltop scene between Johnson and DeBose’s characters, which drags on endlessly. The dialogue is so full of non-sequiturs and incoherent back-and-forth that it feels as though they’re speaking different languages in different rooms.
RGM RATING
(F)
At the end of the day, is Kraven the Hunter worse than Sony’s other Spider-Man-adjacent films? Not necessarily—it’s just another one. It carries all the same storytelling missteps, editing blunders, and over-market-tested instincts as films like Morbius and Madame Web, but with the added insult of being substantially longer. Like those films, Kraven misses every opportunity to explore its titular character as a true villain, instead rebranding him as a generic superhero. And much like its predecessors, it doesn’t seem fair to place blame on the creatives involved, since it’s evident that the film has been heavily altered in post-production, leaving us with a disjointed, underwhelming final product.
