SPOILERS ALERT!!!

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally seen the sixth and presumably final instalment in ‘Sony’s Spider-Man Universe’ film series – ‘Kraven the Hunter’. I had this film on DVD for my birthday back in May. I revisited the previous five ‘SSU’ instalments recently before seeing this film.

‘Kraven the Hunter’ was released at cinemas in December 2024. I would have liked to have seen this film when it came out at cinemas over Christmas last year. Sadly, the film wasn’t out at cinemas for very long and it was shown at impossible times for me to see it.

This film and ‘The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’ suffered in terms of having their cinematic releases, due to the fact they were released simultaneously as ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3’ and ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ at cinemas in December 2024. Ouch, right? 😐

Adding that to the busyness of Christmas and poor weather (at least in Cardiff 😀 ), ‘Kraven the Hunter’ didn’t have many people seeing it on the big screen. It didn’t help that it received negative critics from critics as well. The film ended up being a commercial failure.

As you’re probably aware, I’m not exactly a fan of this ‘Spider-Man’ film series where it’s mainly focusing on Spider-Man villains. I don’t like the ‘Venom’ film trilogy and whilst I’m fine with ‘Morbius’ and ‘Madame Web’ as films, they’re not exactly outstanding classics.

What baffles me is how these films don’t contain any Spider-Man appearances in them. Unless you count the Vulture cameo at the end of ‘Morbius’ containing mentions of Spider-Man, which hasn’t been resolved, and I doubt will ever be resolved anytime soon.

The closest we’ve had to Spider-Man making an appearance in the ‘SSU’ films is the Tom Holland cameo at the end of ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ leading into ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, which didn’t go anywhere, as well as Peter Parker’s birth in ‘Madame Web’. 😐

Quite frankly, the ‘SSU’ films haven’t been very satisfying for everyone, which is a huge let-down. But I was willing to be open-minded when it came to checking out ‘Kraven the Hunter’. I hoped I’d enjoy the film when I saw it on DVD, despite the bad reception it’s had.

And after seeing the film, I found ‘Kraven the Hunter’ okay. Yeah, it’s fine. It’s not great, and there are clearly issues concerning the realisation of Kraven as a character, but it was intriguing to see, and I found the plot quite gripping enough to warrant the entertainment.

The film of course is an origins story that explores Kraven’s relationship with his father as well as his brother and it looks into the path he goes on in becoming the greatest hunter. Kraven the Hunter isn’t exactly what I would call a personal favourite ‘Spider-Man’ villain.

I’ve enjoyed his appearances in the 1990s animated TV series as well as the 2003 short-lived ‘new’ animated series, but I wouldn’t say I’ve raved about Kraven. It has been fascinating to see how Kraven is depicted in live-action form compared to animated versions.

An issue with these ‘SSU’ films is how the titular Spider-Man villains aren’t really villains, as they’re made out to be heroes instead. Sony clearly didn’t take lessons from seeing the first ‘Joker’ film, though judging by ‘Joker 2’, maybe it’s for the best they didn’t do that. 😀

With that said, I like that Kraven as a character isn’t necessarily depicted as being a pure good guy. He has issues concerning his father, which he has killed off by a bear by the film’s end, as well as his brother who isn’t as strong and ruthless as he is with being a hunter.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as Sergei Kravinoff a.k.a. Kraven the Hunter in the film. Some of you may know Aaron Taylor-Johnson best for playing Pietro Maximoff a.k.a. Quicksilver in the ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’ films. I enjoyed Aaron’s take on Kraven’s character.

There’s Ariana DeBose as Calypso Ezili, who was a romantic interest for Kraven in the comics and in the 1990s animated TV series. There’s Fred Hechinger as Dmitri Kravinoff, Kraven’s half-brother, who ends up becoming the Chameleon, another Spider-Man villain.

Alessandro Nivola stars as Aleksei Sytsevich a.k.a. the Rhino, another Spider-Man villain. It’s not a match to Paul Giamatti’s Rhino in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’, but it’s enjoyable enough. Mind you, that strange scream he made in the film has me completely baffled. 😐

There’s Christopher Abbot as the Foreigner, an assassin who has been in the ‘Spider-Man’ comics but he’s not one I’m familiar with and I didn’t know anything about him until this movie. Apparently, he can slow down time before he kills people, which is quite disturbing.

There’s also Murat Seven as Turkish assassin Ömer Ozdemir, Yuri Kolokolnikov as crime lord Semyon Chorney, Tom Reed as Bert, the Rhino’s second-in-command, Masha Vasyukova as Kraven’s mother and Guillaume Delaunay as Mofo, Kraven’s cellmate.

Russell Crowe stars as Nikolai Kravinoff, Kraven’s father in the film, who is a ruthless crime lord and drug trafficker. Russell Crowe is very good in this film. It’s not a match to his Jor-El in ‘Man of Steel’, but it’s way better than his Zeus in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’.

‘Kraven the Hunter’ has been an enjoyable flick for me. It’s certainly more violent compared to previous ‘Sony’s Spider-Man Universe’ instalments, as it earns its 15/R rating with blood and violence featured in it compared to the ‘Venom’ movies, which aren’t so violent quite frankly.

I don’t think there’ll be more ‘SSU’ films after this film, considering ‘Kraven the Hunter’ didn’t do very well at the box office and didn’t win over many critics. There’s a live-action ‘Spider-Noir’ TV series with Nicolas Cage coming soon in 2026. Maybe I’ll see that series sometime.

Stay tuned. 😀

Thanks for reading and watching!

Bye for now.

Tim 🙂