Is there anything left to say about Sony’s Spider-Verse? Never has a fall from grace felt so public, so painful, and so utterly preventable. Sony’s vice grip on the Spider-Man property, and its attempts to maintain it through watered-down superhero movies, is common knowledge at this point. But the studio’s cash grabs were easier to forgive when the memory of Venom — the film meant to set the tone for the Sonyverse — was fresher and more positive. Ten years later, every part of the Sonyverse just feels like an experiment gone wrong. It’s fitting, then, that the studio’s latest effort to reboot its Spider-Man franchise without the hero in question may also be its last.
Kraven the Hunter is no different from the other Sony films made “in association” with Marvel. While it gets some points for its R-rating, it falls prey to the same pitfalls as Madame Web, Morbius, and even the latest Venom movie. With the Sonyverse on its last legs, Kraven had its work cut out for it. There was no world where one film could save an entire franchise, especially one so chaotic as this. No movie is that good. And unfortunately, there’s not a lot of good in Kraven anyway.
