By Ernie Magnotta

In August of 1964, legendary writer Stan Lee and just as legendary artist Steve Ditko devised a new villain to do battle with their greatest creation, The Amazing Spider-Man. The villain’s name: Kraven the Hunter. Kraven, an expert trapper who sees the web-slinger as the most dangerous game and believes that, by defeating him he will become the greatest hunter who ever lived, first appeared in the Marvel comic book Amazing Spider-Man #15. The character was a hit with readers and Kraven quickly became a major foe of Spidey’s for decades to come. As part of Marvel/Sony’s trend of giving some of Spider-Man’s villains their own live-action blockbuster film (Madame Web, Morbius, Venom), Kraven’s epic movie was released this past December and was appropriately titled Kraven the Hunter.

Directed by J. C. Chandor and written by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk, Kraven tells the story of Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), son of cold-blooded drug trafficker Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe). After being seriously injured by saving his half-brother Dimitri (Fred Hechinger) from a lion attack, Sergei gains the physical abilities of an animal, refuses to take over his father’s empire and instead, uses his newfound powers to hunt criminals.

Although I read Marvel comics voraciously as a kid (and loved them all), I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the Kraven character. I remember him appearing many times in the books, but I don’t think the movie follows the storyline of the comics. I could be wrong, though. It’s been over 40 years since I read a comic book, so the writers could have been inspired by a later Kraven story. No matter what the case is, Kraven the Hunter is not up to the standards it should be and that probably has to do with the studio tampering I’ve been hearing about. It somewhat suffers from clichés and I felt like the characters could have been fleshed out a bit more. Still, although far from perfect, I don’t think the movie is as bad as people have been saying. However, one wonders how this film would have turned out if the work of director Chandor and the writers were left alone.

Kraven has a group of wonderful actors, though. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is fine in the lead role. He just isn’t given enough to work with. The great Russell Crowe is also fun to watch while the talented Ariana Debose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola and Christopher Abbott portray legendary Marvel villains Calypso, the Chameleon, the Rhino and the Foreigner, respectively.

Kraven the Hunter has been released on Blu-ray and the film is presented in its original 2.39:1 aspect ratio. For the most part, the audio is very good (except for the movie’s few bits of noticeable ADR). The same goes for the visuals (excluding the mediocre CGI sequences). The disc’s special features are as follows: “Deleted & Extended Scenes”, “Becoming Kraven”, “Beast Mode: The Stunts of the Hunt”, “Outtakes & Bloopers”, “Kraven’s First Hunt: The Direction”, and “Allies & Antagonists: The Killer Cast”. The Blu-ray also comes with a digital copy and a slipcover.

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