Director: J.C. Chandor
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Russell Crowe
Have I Seen It Before: Nope. Barely have an awareness that the character exists in Spider-Man’s world. As this clearly didn’t strain my patience with attempts to tie its main character to the wall-crawler, I’m still not all that aware of it.
Did I Like It: I’m like most Americans. I eat beef. I’m angry about anywhere between a half dozen to two dozen things in life in the 2020s. I also had no interest in any Spider-Man film that doesn’t actually feature Spider-Man.
But then I started a podcast about bad movies, and that Sony’s flailing attempts to double down on the strategy that was brought out into open by North Korea* and bring the Sinister Six to the screen were coming for me. Both the character and series surrounding Venom (2018) have their fans, and golly, do I wish them well. Morbius (2022) might have been on the level of Citizen Kane (1941), but Jared Leto is so annoying, I wasn’t going to see it. No one who made Madame Web (2024) seemed like they wanted to be there, and in the great empathy machine that is the moving picture, I was right there with them.
And then there’s Kraven. There are only a few line readings that are worthy of derision, and only a few puts it in the lead for this series that never really was. The plot is kind bland, but it doesn’t ring as a traffic jam of things no one could possibly care about, so again, point to Kraven. Taylor-Johnson is occasionally a very charming screen presence, almost to the point where I suspect the rationale for participating in this film that was never, ever going to become a franchise was that Taylor-Johnson wanted to be on screen exuding a James Bond-like mystique to him, so that he could document such a quality before the EON people ever asked him to screen test.
*Kids, ask your parents.