Tag: Madame Web

Kraven The Hunter

2024   Sony Pictures

Rated:  R

Length:  2 hr  7min

Action ~ Thriller

Directed by:  J. C. Chandor

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

“Another Marvel Mess…..more like Kraven The Terrible!”

SYNOPSIS FROM THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE:

Kraven the Hunter is the visceral, action-packed origin story of how and why one of Marvel’s most iconic villains came to be. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Kraven, a man whose complex relationship with his ruthless father, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world, but also one of its most feared.

FROM NETFLIX TUDUM:

Kraven the Hunter has been a mainstay of Spider-Man’s “rogues gallery” for more than six decades — but you’ve never seen him like this. In J.C. Chandor’s 2024 film Kraven the Hunter, the Russian big-game hunter of comic book fame is reinvented as a vigilante conservationist with a taste for vengeance. Played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Tenet), this time Kraven is on the hunt, piecing together a vast global conspiracy — and you’re invited along for the ride.

The latest entry in Sony’s Spider-Man universe follows last year’s Madame Web and Venom: The Last Dance, all of which take the world of New York’s most beloved web-slinging superhero and spin it into a whole new multiverse of possibilities.

Here’s everything you need to know about Kraven the Hunter now that the film has prowled onto Netflix in the US.

When will Kraven the Hunter be on Netflix?

Stream it now.

How is Kraven the Hunter related to Marvel?

Both Kraven and his brother Dmitri (who will eventually be known as the Chameleon) were created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko during the original run of Marvel’s flagship The Amazing Spider-Man comic series. Chameleon first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in March 1963, with Kraven joining him to take down the wall-crawler in The Amazing Spider-Man #15 in August 1964. The pair weren’t revealed to be half-brothers until J. M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck’s iconic “Kraven’s Last Hunt” storyline in 1987.

On the cinematic side, Kraven the Hunter is set in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe of Marvel characters, which kicked off with Venom in 2018. While the films are not directly connected to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy (set in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe), they do share the same larger multiverse, as seen in 2023’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (which is also streaming now). 

MY THOUGHTS:

I will confess that I am not a hardcore Marvel fan. I have watched a good number of the movies in the past, the good ones. I watched this because it is brand new to streaming and I am a huge Aaron Taylor-Johnson fan. I first saw him in Savages, then Nocturnal Animals, Outlaw King and The Fall Guy. I love him in all those movies. I feel like he did the best he could with what he was given to work with in this movie.

I have to bring up Madame Web because it feels exactly the same to me. Bad acting, bad writing and a completely disjointed storyline. The beginning origin story barely held my attention, but I was done at the halfway mark when Kraven is bouncing off tall buildings, landing on his barefeet and then running (in barefeet) as fast as the escaping van, then holding back a helicopter from taking off (in his barefeet).

But I hung there, gotta write a review. The Foreigner, the Rhino and Calypso were terrible. Really bad acting there. I love Russell Crowe, The Pope’s Exorcist is one of my recent favorites of his. But this was bad although, again, I think he did the best he could with what he was given to work with. That Russian accent started to really get on my nerves. The only saving grace was Aaron Taylor- Johnson.

Nope, this one is a dog like Madame Web.

Don’t watch it.

Madame Web

2024   Sony Pictures

Rated:  PG-13

Length:  1 hr  56min

Action ~ Thriller

Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor, Adam Scott, and Mike Epps.

“They’re teenagers now, but in the future they have powers and will try to destroy me.”

Dakota Johnson stars as Cassandra Webb, A New York paramedic who finds her singular life suddenly and inexplicably changed after an accident on an emergency call. Strange things begin to happen in her life she cannot explain. Then she is seemingly thrust into the role of protecting three random teenage girls from being harmed by a mysterious man with extraordinary powers.

I confess I looked at some reviews of this movie before I watched it to see what it was about. There are a lot of negative reviews, way more than good. I’m not really a Marvel Comic book fan (I read comic books as a kid but was never super into them) so I’m no expert on the story itself. I watched it to see for myself but I did go in knowing about all the negativity.

From the beginning scene where Cassandra’s Mom Mary Parker is pregnant in the Amazon with The Bad Actor (Pun intended) Ezekiel Sims searching for a spider, I had my doubts. What is she doing in the Amazon pregnant?  The answer to that question gets answered later as the story unfolds. Then Ezekiel quickly turns into a bad guy right as Mary Parker finds the elusive spider and proceeds to shoot everyone in sight including Mary and then steals the spider. It was kind of a hokey scene and Ezekiel is terrible in that scene (Voice included).

As the story unfolded I was drawn in by the characters and the relationship between Cassandra and Ben Parker (Adam Scott). I like Adam Scott and Mike Epps, and things started to pick up rather quickly. There is another scene early on that had me a little baffled. Mike Epps gets into an ambulance and Cassandra tries to talk him out of going because she has a vision of a crash. Seconds later as you see the ambulance drive off it gets hit by a dump truck. As they do an overhead shot of the scene you see the dump truck was headed at a high rate of speed towards the end of a commercial dock.?.

Another moment that made my ears perk up in a questioning way was when Ezekiel is poisoning a Federal Agent and as she’s dying says “Trust me…It’s a good thing you had no idea you were going to die today.” What?…and that voice…ughh..grating. That scene was really bad acting wise, just horrible.

I did like the story itself and I got drawn into the relationship between Cassandra and the three girls she was protecting. By the end of the movie I was wanting to see more of that Spider Sisterhood story and see how they developed into the Superhero girls that were haunting Ezekiel’s dreams. So in the end I am conflicted….

I liked Cassandra and The Spider Sisterhood story (I found myself rooting for all of them and thought they did a good job). But Tahar Rahim as the Bad Actor Ezekiel Sims (again pun intended) was horrible. Some of the scenes were really far fetched like Cassandra suddenly taking off for a quick trip to the Amazon while Ben watched the girls. “Ok, be right back.”

So yes and no……

One thumb up, the other down.