Kraven the Hunter held a small preview event where approximately 26 minutes of the film were screened for select press, before getting to speak with director J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year) and star Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Avengers: Age of Ultron). The preview was a broad showcase of what Kraven the Hunter is offering audiences – a violent, globe-trotting blockbuster action movie that’s also a mob family crime saga, as well as a supervillain origin story. Above all else, the makers of Kraven wanted to make the point that this film isn’t the same kind of thing audiences got with previous films in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, like Morbius, Madame Web, or the Venom Trilogy.
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Kraven is something different, indeed.
Sony Pictures has already released the first eight minutes of Kraven the Hunter, which you can watch above! That footage was shown to press at the preview event, and sees Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) being brought into a Russian prison, where he’s secretly tracking a reputed arms dealer. After a tense introduction to his cellmate, Kraven uses his animalistic abilities to sneak off around the prison, locate his quarry in a decked-out prison cell, and violently dispatch the arms dealer and his men. The sequence ends with Kraven breaking out of the prison and running off across the frozen wasteland at unnatural speed, into an oncoming snowstorm where a plain is waiting to extract him. It’s like a one-man audition tape for Aaron Taylor-Johnson taking over the role of James Bond – which it certainly looks like he could do, as Kraven inexplicably pops his shirt off while the plane takes off, flashing some crazy abs.
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A second scene from the film spotlighted Russell Crow as crimelord Nikolai Kravinoff, hanging out at one of his swanky clubs. Nikolai’s son – and Kraven’s half-brother – Dmitri Smerdyakov (Fred Hechinger) is the pianist playing in the club, and he certainly picked the wrong venue, because a rival mob (led by Aleksei Sytsevich, aka “The Rhino”) has gangsters waiting in the club to try and assassinate Nikolai. Thanks to some ruthless tactics and dedicated bodyguards, Nikolai survives the violent shootout, but is disgusted that his son hides under the piano during the violence, instead of fighting back.
Short clips of footage showed Kraven coming home and having a tense reunion with Nikolai – one that hints at a dark legacy of abuse between father and son – one that Sergei clearly makes a point to say is now over. A different scene sees Kraven (mysteriously dropping his Russian accent) meeting with Calypso Ezili (Ariana DeBosse) in a scenic park area. The scene establishes Kraven’s role as a manhunter with a moral code, and foreshadows Calypso’s arc in the film.
A final set of clips teased action sequence moments in the film: in one, Kraven pursues some of the Rhino’s men after they snatch Dmitri. Kraven uses his superhuman abilities to chase down the van through the city streets, making impossible jumps and knocking over cars while half-naked. Another big action set piece showed Kraven in his full hunter costume, battling what looks like an entire battalion of armed men, in a woodland setting. At first Kraven goes “stealth mode,” using self-made traps and stalking through the trees, to kill off the soldiers. However, the sequence abruptly ended just as heavy artillery was brought in, forcing Kraven to sprint away at top speed, avoiding explosive fire from the big guns.
Can Kraven the Hunter Redeem Sony’s Spider-Man Universe?
The different scenes of Kraven the Hunter footage that was previewed at the event seem to each showcase a different side of the film in the best possible light. The question is: will Kraven the Hunter turn out to be the sum of its parts?
The James Bond espionage-action; the superhero fantasy; and the mix of mob and family drama is an interesting mix, and suggests that Kraven the Hunter will at least be a film with more complexity and depth – and narrative coherence – than the previous SSU movies. More to the point: In a year where Sony released both Madame Web and Venom: The Last Dance, it would be fair for audiences to assume Kraven the Hunter will be more of the same – but no matter what the film ends up being, it won’t be that.
Kraven the Hunter has a release date of December 13th.
