Kraven the Hunter (2024) * * 1/2

Directed by:  J.C. Chandor

Starring:  Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Russell Crowe, Fred Hechinger, Ariana Debose, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott 

I confess I never heard of Kraven the Hunter before seeing the trailers for this movie.  He's a Marvel character, but on the B team.  As a movie, Kraven the Hunter is pretty good.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a sturdy, intense hero, but the movie sags too often for me to fully recommend it.  Kraven the Hunter leaves room open for a sequel, but based on the weak box office, I doubt there will be one.  

Kraven opens with our titular hero in a Siberian prison killing a fellow prisoner who is a mob boss.  Kraven escapes and then boards a spy plane to safety.  He was doing some mercenary work for a shadow organization, but after the opening scenes, this is never referred to again.  We learn in flashbacks that Kraven is Sergei Kravinoff, son of one of the most ruthless Russian mobsters on the planet.   His father is played by Russell Crowe, who at least adopts a better accent than he did in Thor: Love and Thunder, where he sounded like a Borscht-Belt comedian.   Kraven is attacked by a lion during a hunting trip and a local girl stumbles across the wounded Kraven and gives him a special potion which gives him animal-like powers. 

Kraven runs away from his father and feels guilty about leaving his younger brother Dimitri (Hechinger) behind.   Kraven learns not only how to hunt in the wild, but gains superpowers and animal instincts which serve him well in his new life.  However, Kraven is more of an animal protector than an animal hunter, and his ability to communicate telepathically with them reminds me of an athletic Dr. Dolittle.   Besides Kraven's father, another villain is rival mobster who can turn into a rhinoceros at the drop of a hat.  Alessandro Nivola is as reliable an actor as you can get, but Rhino is not an interesting villain.  The stronger and more dangerous villain is Foreigner (not the band) played by Christopher Abbott.   Foreigner is able to manipulate space and freeze time long enough to speedily move around, making him almost impossible to defeat.  Kraven goes one-on-one with Foreigner, and this payoff doesn't work.  Someone else dispatches Foreigner and that makes Kraven weaker.  The movie works better when Kraven has to battle his inner conflicts and his relationship to his father.  

Kraven the Hunter is among the middle of the road Marvel movies.  It has its moments, but as I recall, it has no scenes in which the sun shines.  It's drab under mostly overcast skies, and the pall is felt throughout the movie.