Kraven the Hunter (2024) - Movie Review

Hey guys, today I am here with Kraven the Hunter, an American superhero movie released in 2024. Which is the number six movie in our Sony Spiderman Universe. But it can also be seen as a stand alone movie. It means there is no link with the previous episodes yet.

Detailed Plot/Story Overview (Spoiler Alert)

In the beginning we see some criminals being transported to a prison in Russia by a car. And the main character of this movie, Kraven, is among those criminals, don't think that he was brought here as a prisoner. In fact, Kravin deliberately took his place by killing a criminal midway. Because he wants to kill an arms smuggler in this Russian prison. After hearing this, you must be thinking why suddenly Kraven wants to kill an arms smuggler? Gradually you will get answers to all your questions.

According to the plan, Kraven kills the weapons smuggler in the prison, somehow escapes, but it is here that Kraven's actions reveal that he has unusual powers. I mean the kind of power a super power should have, but the question here is how did Kraven get this kind of power? To find out the answer we have to go back almost 16 years. Where we see Kraven and his only brother Dimitri studying in a hostel, suddenly his father Nikolai comes to pick them up one day. On the way from here, his father informed them that their mother died suddenly. So their father decided that henceforth they should join their family business instead of studying. Because this will make their future beautiful.

Let me tell you here that Kraven's good name is Sergi, later Sergi himself changed his pseudonym to Kraven. So I'll call him Kraven in the review. Anyway, Kraven doesn't really like his father's work or the family business. Because his father is a drug supplier and supplying drugs is their family business, which means that the same work has been going on for generations. So naturally Nicolaio wants his two sons to focus on his business from now on. That's why Nikolai came with his two sons to Tanzania in East Africa. Because there a ferocious lion killed several of their members. So Nikolai came to this place to acknowledge the lion. And also brought his two sons to this place, because all this hunting would increase their courage in their minds, and courage in their business is the greatest thing.

Unfortunately, while hunting at that place, Kraven himself was attacked by the lion in order to save his brother from it. Although his father fired several shots at the lion from a distance, the lion still took Kraven into the deep forest. On the other hand, a family wandering in the same forest lost their baby girl Calypso. And that baby girl is the Calypso show in which the wounded Kraven and the lion appear in front of the lion, who is already injured by the shot and runs away, leaving Kraven behind. Seeing that, Calypso approaches the wounded Kraven and pours a special serum she has on Kraven's face. And then started screaming for help. As a result, Kraven is rescued from the scene by his father in a critical condition and brought to a hospital, where the doctor says that there is no way to save him. But in no time it is seen that Craven makes the impossible possible.

Kraven suddenly recovered completely. I know you are wondering how Kraven recovered from that serious injury?

The answer is this special serum, meaning the one that Calypso poured into her mouth, but the question here is how did that special serum get to that baby girl? In fact, Calypso's grandmother gave her this special serum and three tarot cards when she was a child. And said that this serum has special powers because whoever drinks it will heal any wound immediately. And this serum was given to him by his grandmother because his grandmother understood through prophecy that he would need this serum very soon. Although Calypso was so young at that time that she did not understand the greatness of the serum, but later seeing Kraven in such an injured state, she poured the serum into his mouth to heal him. As a result, Kraven actually came back from the brink of death because of that serum. Kraven then becomes angry with his father when he is shown the lion by his father after he takes him back home, and later when his father tells him that he will not be afraid of all these things from now on, Craven becomes even more angry.

And immediately left home because Kraven didn't like his family business at all. Although his brother tries to stop him before leaving, Kraven leaves without hearing anything from Dimitri. After which he starts living in a private house of his mother in a sanctuary in Russia and it is here that he realizes that he has completely changed from before. It means that after that accident, super human ability suddenly came in him.

Forgot to mention one thing here, after Calypso made him drink that special serum, the serum bottle and a card were left with him. Which are currently in Kraven's possession and Kraven could very well guess that the changes in his body were caused by the special ingredients in that vial. So since then he has been looking for the clue of that card who saved him from the accident in his childhood. And at the same time he is doing another secret job, he is killing all the big mafias in the world one by one and in the first scene we see he killed an arms smuggler in a Russian prison, it is for the same reason. Now I hope you have answered all the questions from the beginning till now.

Anyway, the scene cuts back to the present day, where we see Kraven arrive in London on Dimitri's birthday, meet his brother, and the two celebrate Dimitri's birthday together. But the very next day some miscreants kidnap his brother from his room. Kraven realized that and tried to stop them, but finally the miscreants managed to escape with his brother.

As a result, he is forced to meet his father and request him to free his brother from the evildoers by any means. Because his brother was kidnapped because of his father, another group of drug mafias kidnapped his son out of revenge against Nikolai, but Nikolai tells Kraven bluntly that he will not bow down to another gang, whether his son is alive or dead. Because even though Kraven is his own son, Dimitri is his step-son, Kraven is even more angry when he hears that he goes out alone to rescue his brother from the evildoers. And for this work he first takes the help of Calypso who is now a lawyer. Yes, you're right, this is the girl who gave Kraven life as a child with that serum.

Now you must be wondering how Kraven found this woman. As I mentioned earlier, through a tarot card in Kraven's possession, Kraven was trying to find the person who saved him from the accident when he was a child, and it was through that card that Kraven finally found this woman. And although they've known each other since then, Kraven appears to her and asks for her help in finding his brother. Mane urges him to find out who might have kidnapped his brother from London, so the Calypso show uses its sources to reveal that a Turk named Omar has kidnapped his brother. And most likely his brother is now in a monastery, so Kraven immediately leaves for Turkey to rescue his brother. But despite being able to kill Omar at this monastery, he failed to rescue his brother because the person who kidnapped his brother, knew in advance that Kraven was going to attack the place. That's why Kraven fails.

Then it is seen that the main villain of this movie Aloxi appears in front of Dimitri who is imprisoned. who once worked with Nikolai but was often laughed at by Nikolai and the others due to his physical weakness and was even rejected by Nikolai and expelled from his team for the same reason. And since then she is very angry with Nikolai but now she overcomes her physical weakness and is super strong because after breaking up with Nikolai she met a scientist who was secretly researching to multiply human strength.

The scientist applied his research to Aloxi and transformed him into a Rhinoceros, multiplying his powers. But while in the form of a Rhinoceros, an unbearable pain could not be tolerated by him at all. That is why he has to carry a special antibiotic all the time. Through which he remains in normal form but at this moment he tells Dimitri that they actually planned to kidnap his brother but unfortunately they did not find his brother and they brought Dimitri so he is surprised to hear that Dimitri asks him to know if his brother has harmed them? Aloxi then tells him that you don't know anything about your brother, so he shows Dmitri a video clip that Dmitri realizes that Krevin the Hunter, who is killing all the mafia in the world, is actually his brother Shergi.

So before Kraven kills her, Alexie tries to kidnap her herself. But unfortunately, not finding him, they were forced to kidnap his brother. At the moment though, he makes Dimitri an offer that if Dimitri agrees with him, they will kill his father together and take over his entire empire. And later they will kill Kraven too but Dimitri rejects his offer. However, after hearing this, Alexie spares him from being killed because they can use Dimitri as a trap to kill Kraven.

It then follows a mercenary named The Foreigner who meets Aloxi, a mercenary who also has some extraordinary powers. This person hypnotizes any person with his vision and kills him easily. And Aloxi used this person to kill Kraven. Anyway, this time on the other hand, Kraven contacts Calypso and tells her to meet him at a certain place as soon as possible because it is too dangerous for Calypso to be alone now, so when Calypso meets him at that certain place according to Kraven, the two of them go straight to Kraven's mother's house in the Russian sanctuary. But unfortunately, The Foreigner guesses through a pea named Rosary that Kraven is probably living in an asylum in Russia. So they also appeared in Russia with a group to kill Kraven. While Kraven starts to kill their members one by one, Foreigner finally kills Kraven with some neurotoxin. But before killing him outright, Calypso kills Foreigner with an arrow and finds Kraven injured, reviving him with the serum she has.

It is then that Kraven finally uses a group of buffaloes to defeat Rhino and free his brother from his clutches, and it is at this point that we finally see Alexi, the main villain of the movie, as Rhino, who overpowers Kraven with his powers, but Kraven outsmarts him in the end and rescues his brother safely from him.

After a few days, Kraven met his father alone in a forest in Russia and asked him how Aloxi knew that Kraven was his eldest son. In response, his father revealed to him the truth that Nikolai had already known that Alexi wanted to kill Nikolai and take over his empire, but Nikolai thought that it was impossible for him to defeat Alexi alone, so he deliberately dragged Kraven into it. In which he is now successful, but after it is confirmed, Kraven steals his father's gun and flees the scene, only to be killed by a bear on the spot.

A year after this event, Kraven meets Dimitri again, but this time, Kraven is shocked to find that Dimitri has now inherited his father's empire, meaning that his father's nefarious business is now being run by his brother. Even Dimitri himself gained the ability to shapeshift through the scientist that Aloxi was empowered by. Which angers Kraven but he does nothing to his beloved brother now. Later, when Kraven returns home in despair, he finds a letter addressed to him by his father and also a vest made of a lion's skin, which he wears to usurp his father's throne, and this is where the movie ends.

My Thoughts

To be honest, I didn't want to explain this movie at all, but since the origin of Kraven is presented in the movie, I was forced to do this despite my reluctance, because it will help you to understand this character later, and the happy news is that this is probably the last movie of the Sony Spiderman Universe. It means that this universe will also be rebooted.

The surprising thing here is that this is the first corner of the universe I saw the name of which the universe has been created, so far I have not seen him in any movie. Even though six movies have been released in the name of Spiderman universe, Spiderman has not been found in any of the movies. So I think it is better to have such a universe than not. It's a good thing the universe is ending here because otherwise a lot of good characters would have been destroyed in their cycle, which I didn't like at all.

All Image source IMDb