Only the robust presence of Russell Crowe – and what might conceivably be a sly visual joke about exiled Russian plutocrat Mikhail Khodorkovsky – make this generic slice of superhero action worth watching.
Kraven the Hunter has been an exotic, marginal figure in the Spider-Man part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but now he gets his own film and Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays him as an ultra-muscly super predator with Spidey’s skill in whooshing up and down buildings and a sense for something amiss – although the great arachnid himself does not appear. Kraven thinks of human beings as the only worthy game (that is: bad people who deserve what’s coming to them) and despises people who presume to kill noble beasts. Taylor-Johnson himself gets to fearlessly wrestle with a few digital big cats.
