Kraven the Hunter (2024)

I've been quite generous in how I've received (the apparently now finished) <em>'Sony’s Spider-Man Universe'</em>, but even I can't give you any positives for this one. <em>'Venom'</em> is its peak, though I genuinely enjoyed <em>'Madame Web'</em> (don't @ me) and even (the not good) <em>'Morbius'</em> didn't overly bother me. <em>'Kraven the Hunter'</em>, however, did well and truly bore me. Aaron Taylor-Johnson offers a glimmer of hope, but this makes for a looooong 2hrs 7mins (why that long, I have no idea). The first few scenes, whilst nothing exceptional, are actually perfectly OK - I thought so, anyway. Though pretty much from the introduction of a young Calypso (no hate on Ariana DeBose btw, I like her and she tries) the movie quickly spirals. The characters of Russell Crowe and Alessandro Nivola (he, too, tries) are, to put it kindly, rather irritating. Christopher Abbott's role has some potential attached to it, though that countdown thing got repetitive real fast; almost as quick as 1... 2... nevermind. The stuff with Fred Hechinger's part, meanwhile, is bizarre, sure it makes sense based on his (bad) final scene but the whole voice bit felt silly at every moment; esp. when imitating Crowe's Nikolai. Probably for the best that this character and franchise ends here.