Kraven the Hunter trailer reaction
After the amazing highs of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, fans would be forgiven for being excited for the next Spider-Man project that Sony has in the works for audiences, and erm, well they’re putting out a movie for sure.
Centered around the Spider-Man villain Kraven the Hunter, Sony are using the film to reinvent this cold-hearted animal killer into someone who has a soft spot for his game and completely missing the point of the character in the process.
Audiences see Russell Crowe take on the role as Kraven’s father. In this short tease he looks like the true Krave, more than Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He owns this evil animal hunting group, and he’s trying to bring up his two sons to follow in his footsteps.
Here, the actual Kraven is tasked with killing a lion, something he completely fails at, as he’s scared for some reason? This is an utter fail at the character, the Kraven in the comics wouldn’t have hesitated to kill the beast.
The lion then bites Kraven, and because it must be a radioactive lion or something it confers special lion powers to him, which was a sigh-inducing moment. Kraven of course does have powers in the comic, but they aren’t given to him in such an awful way.
For the rest of the trailer, Kraven goes about brutally dismembering his opponents, not other animals or animal-based heroes (we’ll get to that in a second), but regular goons under his dad’s employ. So in this film, Kraven will be “hunting” animal traffickers, failing at the villain part of his character.
And, just like the other Sonyverse movies, Spider-Man is nowhere to be seen. There’s the usual vague hints, this time spiders in the woods, but that just reminds audiences what’s missing.
The final few seconds tease The Rhino, another mutant of some sort, who will likely end up bitten by a radioactive rhino to get his powers. You have to wonder if Sony has some sort of zoo it gets all these creatures from.
It’s another step in Sony’s Sinister Six plan. For those counting at home, there are now five villains in the Sony Spider-Man universe. Kraven the Hunter, The Rhino, Morbius, The Vulture and Venom. All that’s left is Sony to find their final member, (probably El Muerto) fans will have a truly dire team, and there likely still won’t be a Spider-Man to fight them.
The tagline teases the making of a villain, but this trailer does the opposite, bringing destruction of one. Kraven isn’t doing anything villainous and that’s on purpose. Sony is dead set on making Spider-Man’s rogues-gallery into anti-heroes, draining them of what makes them who they are. It’s something that worked with Venom but not since.
It’s truly baffling that the same studio could make such a beautiful love letter to comics and to Spider-Man in Across the Spider-Verse, show a far better interpretation of Kraven in the trailer for the upcoming Spider-Man 2 video game but come out with Tarzan knock-off here.
