'Kraven the Hunter' review: A new Marvel misfire

Bulked up, bloviating and utterly bogus – that’s “Kraven the Hunter,” a new addition to the ever-expanding Marvel canon.  It can be entertaining, the way just about anything that moves on a screen can, and it’s occasionally funny, sometimes even on purpose. Grab your popcorn and check your brain, and you might not be completely disappointed.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Sergei, son of the Russian crime lord Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe). Nikolai is not what you’d call a sensitive male: In flashback, after Mrs. Kravinoff kills herself, he soothes their two young sons by taking them on a big-game hunt in Africa. “Shoot to kill,” he explains. “Fun!” No wonder Sergei grows up to become a globe-trotting vigilante who – thanks to a potion that grants him predatory powers -- hunts down bad guys just like his dad. Meanwhile, his little brother, Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), grows into a sensitive singer-pianist. He’ll become an unwitting pawn in a plan to exterminate Kraven.

Give credit to Taylor-Johnson, who packed on 35 pounds of muscle to  play this role and gives it everything he’s got. He swaggers menacingly, poses seductively, flings himself through windows and chases cars (barefoot and on all fours, yet). The movie’s other great scenery-chewer is Crowe, who plays Nikolai as some kind of malevolent Siberian Hemingway. Alessandro Nivola has fun playing The Rhino, one of those Marvel villains who went to see the wrong doctor; he now has a condition that literally thickens his skin. Lost in all the testosterone is Ariana DeBose (2021's “West Side Story”) as Calypso, a London lawyer who becomes Kraven’s girl-with-a-laptop.

The unlikely director is J.C. Chandor, whose previous films included the talky drama “Margin Call” and the dialogue-less survival film “All Is Lost.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Chandor’s action sequences don’t quite work: They speed by so quickly, abetted by such obvious CGI, that they rarely make an impact. Not helping is a script, by Richard Wenk and others, that feels both overstuffed and underbaked. Take, for instance, The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott), an assassin whose eyes can freeze his enemies. Anyone care to explain how he obtained that power? Or how it works? Alright, forget it and pass the popcorn.

In the future, maybe “Kraven the Hunter” will become a cult favorite, the kind of campy hoot that pops up at midnight movie marathons alongside “Flash Gordon” and “Birdemic.” If your appetite for such stuff is bottomless, this Marvel misfire just might satisfy.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman