"Kraven the Hunter", or when your sh*tty superhero movie could be "The Godfather", but you couldn't not make it suck.

F*ck, Sony! What in the actual f*ck are you doing with these characters? I believe I am the only person who still wants this movies to be good, or at least entertaining. And you do this? F*ck!

Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is the son of a Russian Crime Lord named Nikolai (Russell Crowe), but since a very young age, due to his father's abuses and a near death expierince that gave him aumented abilities, he left his family, started living in the jungle and hunts criminals. One day, another Crime Lord who calls himself The Rhino (Alessandro Nivola) kidnaps Kravens broter Dimitri (Fred Hechinger), who has a weird ability to imitate any voice (which plays no part in the plot, but they mention it a lot so I did not wanted to be left behind). Kraven starts looking for him, so he allies with a lawyer, Calypso (Ariana DeBose, in a part that is an insult to this Academy Award winner actress), who in a Deus-ex-machina moment can pick a bow and arrow and becomes Hawkeye, at the same time they start being chased by a Hitman (Christopher Abbott) with the ability to slow time to whom looks him directly at his eyes.

This sounds like a very convoluted mess, and it is. There is a lot going on, but when you see each part on its own, you can start realizing the amazing potential that is hidden behind this premise if it was done by someone who knows what in the *ss is doing. It is practically an action thriller about a war in the russian criminal underworld where most of the involved ones have some sort of super-powers. Like, imagine a Russian The Godfather where Michael has feline abilities, Freddy can imitate anyone and the hit they need to do is an invulnerable guy who is depending on a medication like it was fent.

On top of this, the relationship between this characters have a solid foundation and a very funtional dynamic. Kraven just want to not be like his father, but every step in that direction is two in the other way. He and his brother do care for each other, in a palpable way, and they work as opposites that makes their father preffer one over the other, generating a conflict between them. Alexei was humilated by the father of this two brothers and, even when most of the time he acts as this weak and almost nerd character with a little backpack, he can also be this cruel, imposing and merciless gangster. Nikolai is a son of a b*tch that matches Crowe's apparently violent nature on set, so here that aspect is exploded and charismatic. The hit-man with powers is referred as having some connection of revenge against Kraven, being there a personal, but bad developted, link. And, even in a forced way, Calypso is involuntary the creator of Kraven, giving the protagonist some sort of debt to her he feels obligated to pay. There are a couple of characters that, even when just appear in a couple of shots and are mostly there to resolve certain issues, they make a scene more unique and charismatic.

The movie also is kind of ambitious. Yes, it does not have this big epic battles with a ray firing to the sky as big action superhero movies should, but neither is a one location movie. There are scenes in a prision in the middle of siberia, Kraven jumps all over the city buildings, there family house is a mansion and multiple scenes are in a jungle full of CGI animals that somewhat helps Kraven in the climax. In its no R-rated way there are some brutal and bloody carnage scenes.

With all this, and even when I was actually trying to enjoy it, the film just not let you do that. It is like if Sony was actively against of making good live-action superhero films. The directing by J.C. Chandor is mediocre at best. There are a couple interesting visuals like Kraven in the eye of a lion, the introduction scene in a heavy snow kind of creates a dense atmosphere, and the recreation of the famus “Kraven in throne” ilustration works well. There is a scene of Kraven walking towards the camara with the action in the background out of focus, being simple, yet ridicoulusly effective, where you can see the protagonist reaction and is inmersive because as he, you are not seeing what you know its happening, as well as avoids falling into the explicit.

Sadly, everything else is just bland, generic, uninspired and do not transmit any emotion at all. Fakeish CGI, flat illumination, generic and almost stereothipical locations, weird and inconsistent clothing, and the montage repeats many times the same poor-integrated motifs. There is not an attempt to film anything in a meaningful, original or at least striking way. Chandor has a philosophy of just pointing the camera without any intention more than having in the shot what was written in the script.

Talking about the screenwriters, Richard Wenk, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, they do a very mediocre job. They are not the only ones that does not deliver appropiately, but a good screenplay could surpass the generic direction, and where Chandor never shows any capacity of doing something more, the script do has a lot of amazing concepts that are so badly executed. The whole underwolrd war has a very passive side, where Nikolai never reacts nor attacks the other side, is just taking the hits. The relationships and conflicts between characters never evolve and just exist in a superficial and one-noted kind of way. The high concept elements are not properly explored, even less exploited in an attractive way. There are like seven climax, an astonishingly long and pointless prologue, and some epilogue that just promise something that is never going to happen (like Peter Paker at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man or a politician).

But the most frustrating thing in the whole movie is the participation of Kraven's brother, also known in the comics as the Chameleon. His dynamic with Kraven and their father is full of potential. He is the black sheep of the family, his ability to imitate voices is seen as something useless and he is always treated as less because he is a "coward" who just do not fight or resort to violence. But all this complex character building is used only for him to be a MacGuffin that drives Kraven and acts just as a passive curious thing. Imagine if he uses his imitation of voices to confuse and manipulate the ones who kidnapped him, maybe even starts kind of dressing as others foreshadowing his character ability in the comics of taking any form. Or, imagine if instead of when the antagonist cut his finger as a way to show they mean bussiness, they completely acid-burn his face, leaving him with a white face that looks like a mask, the same as his comics counterpart, not only building for what comes next, but also being a more brutal and effective way of confering the message. Even better, imagine that he was the mind behind everything, trying to probe himself, to his father and over-protecting brother, that his ability to plan and impersonate others is useful and vicious as their abilities, and that he is planning to take the full underworld criminal empire. That would be a more deep, emocional, tight, and maybe even more compelling with the fans.

At last, Kraven the Hunter did the same thing as Madame Web: have amazing concepts that end up in the final product just as shadows of their potential united by uninspired characters and a laughable plot. Hope that if Sony continues these films, that apparently not anymore, they can get at least a screenwriter that knowns what he is doing. I just miss watching a good superhero movie :'(