KRAVEN THE HUNTER

Based on the Marvel comic book character, Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as Sergei Kravinoff aka Kraven. Having been raised alongside his brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) by their father Nikolai (Russell Crowe) to be fearless hunters, Sergei heeds his fathers words while Dmitri buckles under the weight of his fathers expectations. Sergei and Nikolai are similar yet butt heads with Sergei refusing to believe he's anything like his father. When Dmitri gets kidnapped, Kraven goes on a hunting spree to rescue his brother. Another comic book villain Sony is trying to spin off in their "Spider-Man less" universe and while the other entries have not been to my liking, this surprisingly was. I was expecting the worse but I'm glad Sony had the stones to go ahead and make this a R-rated film because if this was watered down to a PG-13, it would have been even worse. I actually wouldn't mind seeing a sequel for this but that'll ultimately depend upon the box office receipts and I've already heard rumors that Sony is going to take a break in an attempt to reboot their efforts in the future with their non-Spider-Man characters. Taylor-Johnson does a great job as the fan favorite hunter. He's believable, vicious, and powerful although I could easily see how any number of critics will cry foul that this film promotes "toxic masculinity." These are the same individuals who won't perform a simple Google search in order to research the time period the character was created or the fact he's Russian, which spoiler alert, they're not as PC as we are here. I had been wanting to see more of The Rhino as the character hasn't gotten much screen time previously and here, he sadly doesn't get his proper time to shine either but Alessandro Nivola makes the best with what he's given. This was definitely better than MORBIUS, MADAME WEB, and at least the last 2 VENOM movies so again, I'd be happy to watch Kraven go on another hunt in the near future. 6/10