Kraven the Hunter reviews blast film as 'punishingly dull'

Kraven the Hunter seems ready to join the likes of Morbius and Madame Web as a Sony Spiderverse dud, if the reviews are anything to go by anyway.

The movie tells the origin story of Aaron Taylor-Johnson's villain Sergei Kravinoff (aka Kraven), charting his traumatic upbringing with his father Nikolai (Russell Crowe) to his violent adulthood where he has come to see humans as the only animals worth hunting. The Spider-Man villain has an affinity with animals, so much so he's developed animalistic superhuman powers which he uses to protect his younger brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger).

Critics were unamused by Kraven the Hunter and they described it as a "punishingly dull" movie with a "laborious story" — it's safe to say that few of them held back.

The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney was the critic to blast the movie as "punishingly dull" as he argued that it would have been better had it tried to embrace its naturally cheesy dialogue and plot, like Venom. The critic wrote: "Those hints of a so-bad-it’s-good guilty pleasure are a fleeting tease in an action thriller that spills plenty of blood but never raises the temperature or ignites the excitement."

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Rooney also said that Taylor-Johnson is "too wooden to have any fun" in the movie, and added: "Despite the many smackdowns and the elevated body count, the story never builds momentum. It has too little internal logic for that."

This was a sentiment that The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw mirrored, as the critic said the only reason the "generic" film is worth watching is the "robust presence of Russell Crowe".

"JC Chandor, whose credits include directing the fascinating near-silent jeopardy drama with Robert Redford All Is Lost, in 2013, does a serviceable job," Bradshaw wrote. "But the delirious craziness that once made the superhero genre so watchable is not really in evidence. Kraven is a so-so character in a so-so film and the superhero revival is as far away as ever."

Variety's Owen Gleiberman also wasn't impressed with the movie, saying that Taylor-Johnson's character is "the third-tier superhero he is, just like Morbius or Madame Web".

Watch the trailer for Kraven the Hunter:

The critic added: "The actor who doesn’t steal scenes is Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I’m always holding out for this dude, because I liked him in Nocturnal Animals and Nowhere Boy and Savages... but despite the fact that he was recently (falsely) rumored to have won the role of James Bond, I’m starting to think that Taylor-Johnson lacks the X factor.

"In Kraven the Hunter, he does a fine job when he has to go running, running, running through the streets of London and hang onto the side of a speeding van. But the American accent he puts on hurts him, because it flattens his personality."

One critic did enjoy the film to some extent, Deadline's Pete Hammond, who said that he "had a surprisingly good time with this ultraviolent R-rated" movie.

Hammond enjoyed the action and Taylor-Johnson's performance, writing: "It turns out to be a spectacular action and character-driven performance from Aaron Taylor-Johnson and some tight exciting filmmaking from director J.C. Chandor, whose previous films, other than Triple Frontier, are far more indie in style and scope."

Kraven the Hunter premieres in UK cinemas on Friday, 13 December.