Kraven the Hunter, whether it ends up being good or not, can at least promise violence, action, and… a story about family?
I am not particularly confident in Kraven the Hunter being a good movie. Literally every Spider-Man-less live-action Sony Spider-Verse film has been just abysmal bar the Venom trilogy (those ones fit into the “so bad but good” category), and I don’t see any reason why Kraven would be any different. It’s not like Sony and the crew haven’t tried to convince you to watch it and say that it’s good, its director even outright asked potential viewers to give it a chance, and the first eight minutes have been released for free online in a probable bid to increase ticket sales. And now, in a recent interview with GamesRadar, lead actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson has tried to present the film as something a bit more rounded, one with some heart underneath the violence.
“I think at the core of the story, there’s a real family drama. You see these two boys being brought up in a very toxic environment,” Taylor-Johnson said. “Their father is this Russian gangster, the head of this mobster gang, and eventually he wants to hand the business over.” Though, Taylor-Johnson’s character, Sergei, aka Kraven, isn’t actually into the idea of taking over his dad’s profession, which the actor explains says “kind of sends my character down this journey of becoming a vigilante, and his path to being a villain.”
There’s also Dmitri, Sergei’s brother, who is “the only thing he [Sergei/Kraven] cares about and wants to protect with all his life, but I think ends up getting caught up in everything [that] might put him in harm’s way, and he has to live with that. And so there is a real strong heart and soul to this story.”
Director J.C. Chandor also took part in the same interview, noting that the film’s R-rating allowed them to “do some things.” The director explains, “There’s a history of mental illness. You’re gonna see a couple things that happen here, where you’re like, ‘whoa’ that actually refers more to the way these kids were brought up.”
I’ll give it to him that the idea of a film actually grappling with adults dealing with being raised in such a tumultuous environment is more interesting than simply “guy likes to hunt so that’s what he does”, but we’ll have to wait and see how it’s all executed first.
Kraven the Hunter is out in just a few days time, on December 13.
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