Kraven the Hunter (2024)

 

So once again Sony attempted to continue their own expanded superhero universe with yet another Spider-Man spin-off entry. The keyword here being 'attempted', as we all know up to this point the results have been pretty bad. Would this rugged-looking safari-type villain change that? (ugh!)

I mean, let's be frank here, this character is just lame, he's a crap character. I don't know a great deal about the history of comicbooks but I've always thought many characters were just blatant attempts to crowbar themselves into other popular genres of the time. For example, 'Blade' was simply Marvel trying to squeeze into the classic horror genre. Kraven seems to be Marvel trying to squeeze themselves into the classic Tarzan adventure type genre. I mean, look at this guy's attire, typical generic leopard print with lion's mane collar and big tash! I'm amazed he didn't have one of those big game safari hats (maybe he did, I dunno).

Look at the basics of the character here, in this movie at least. Kraven's (his original name is Sergei but whatever) father is a big-time drug dealer, because of course he is. They go on safari (ugh!!), and Kraven gets attacked by a lion (of course!). Some of the lion's blood gets into Kraven's blood, I think, but the lion brings Kraven to this witch doctor type woman named Calypso? (oh boy). She heals him with a magic serum? What? And now, low and behold, Kraven has super animalistic superpowers! Because, you know, that's what happens (facepalm). I thought these powers would make him more like a lion or something, which they kinda do, but overall he's just basically semi-invincible (I'm laughing out loud here).

Yeah, so what we have here is Spider-Man, but instead of a spider, it's a lion. That's literally it. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is swaggering around acting all tough and cool as this ridiculous muscular Doctor Doolittle type bloke who can leap off skyscrapers, dodge bullets, and has a serious knife fetish. He clearly beefed up for the role, what a waste of time. Seriously it's embarrassing how much this guy swaggers in this, I thought he was gonna tilt over completely his swagger was so hard. As for the villains (I thought Kraven was the villain?), well there's some guy called the 'Foreigner'? Is he...a foreigner? Who is this guy? What are his superpowers? Ocular hypnosis? The power of making people stare? And there's 'Rhino', a guy who was experimented on, and now he turns into a humanoid rhino. It was supposed to simply make his skin really tough, much like rhino hide, but apparently it went as far as to give him rhino horns too, because why now?? When in regular human form he looks like a dorky school kid with a backpack on a field trip.

The CGI effects are top-to-bottom pure garbage. I know this is an old saying but this movie looks like it came out in the early 00's, and had it done so it might have fared better. But yeah, the movie looks like ass, the action is cookie-cutter nonsense that looks like ass, and there are loads of bad looking CGI animals to boot. Wanna see a low-tier superhero (supervillain?) fight a crap looking CGI big cat? You're in luck my friend.

The only single highlight in this entire movie was Russell Crowe as Kraven's kingpin dad. Russell looks beefy and badass as the crime lord. He kinda gave me a South African, Afrikaner, vibe to be honest, a bit like the Ulysses Klaue character. Other than that, this entire venture was a complete generic mess. The plot is simply Kraven having to rescue a family member from the bad guys, but the bad guys have underestimated Kraven on his own turf. The first half is an overly long origins story which is boring. The second half is just bad CGI action and underwhelming action sequences we have all seen before. Rhino looks stupid, really stupid. Foreigner didn't even need to be there, with his ability to make people stare. Calypso does nothing, and Kraven has daddy issues. This movie was offensively bad, harsh? Maybe, but I really can't believe they're making stuff like this still.

2/10

Land of the Lost (2009)

 

Right, so this movie is an adaptation of the 1970's kids show of the same name. This was actually news to me as I originally thought this movie was based on various classic adventure flicks from the days of yore; maybe throw in some Doug McClure. Nope, the original source material is actually a silly kids TV series that I have never seen, but now want to.

I have no idea how accurate this movie is to the original TV series, but plot wise it's not very original at all. Washed-up palaeontologist Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell) is the key founder and driver of his own 'quantum palaeontology' theory. He meets a woman, also in his field of work, who shows him a unique fossil and crystal she found that gives off strong tachyon energy. Amazingly Marshall has been working on a 'tachyon amplifier' (whatever), so they both go to the location where the fossil was discovered. Once on location, high levels of tachyons are detected. Marshall activates his amplifier (because science stuff) which, somehow, triggers a massive time warp, of which both get sucked into. Unsurprisingly their mission is now to find a way back home.

So having never seen the original TV series I cannot compare anything here, but I was deeply disappointed at the route this movie took. Yes okay, the original series was pretty silly by the sounds of it, obviously being aimed at kids, but this more adult affair just didn't land for me. I can't say I'm totally surprised, it is a Will Ferrell vehicle after all, but I was really hoping for a slightly more genuine adventure and not an all out sophomoric spoof.

For starters this movie has not aged well, shock horror. The mass of CGI is terribly obvious plastic looking CGI. Unfortunately the early 00's was not a good era for CGI. What makes things worse is the terribly obvious greenscreen shots and sequences too. Almost every shot looks fake as hell with the actors clearly on sets in front of greenscreens. Every now and then there is a real location shot that merely stands out like a sore thumb against the CGI.

As said this is a Ferrell vehicle, so expect lots of loud rants, silly quips, double entendres, and stupid lame moments of raunchiness. Some will enjoy this, for me it's a no. Yes this kind of angle has worked well for Ferrell, but it just doesn't work here for me. This would have worked far better with a more legit angle, Indiana Jones for kids, but lighthearted. There was no need for the adult angle, and that probably turned away potential money. The whole thing is lacking charm and stakes, you don't really care about the characters or what happens, it's all just a waste. 

Heck, they even throw away the dinosaur threat by making the T-Rex friends with Marshall in the finale. Well, that after we have a entire sequence of childish back and forth about how the dinosaur pooped Marshall out after supposedly eating him. And this T-Rex is just like a big dog apparently, it even knew when Marshall insulted it, which was the core of an entire dumb grudge subplot. It really does seem like most of this movie is made up of inane childish dialogue simply because they had no real idea what to do. Nothing happened when Marshall crept through the baby Pteranodon nest. Nothing happened when the giant crab appeared (just another lame visual gag), and all the action sequences were so so weak, I can barely call them action sequences.

Overall this was a really big disappointing ugly mess. For me, there are virtually no redeeming features here other than the really nice costume and makeup work on the Sleestak lizard suits. Everything else here was a total misfire from visuals to gags to the casting. Even Ferrell was an annoying douche throughout this. If you want a better adventure yarn, try out the Brendan Fraser vehicle 'Journey to the Center of the Earth', which came out a year before this.

3/10

Wednesday - Seasons 1/2 (2022/2025)

 

Kinda stuck in the middle on this one. Being a MASSIVE Addams Family fanboy I do love this entire concept. All the visuals are exactly as I would have envisioned, although it does all look a bit too close to other franchises like 'Harry Potter', and in places like certain (Burton) movies. Yes it all looks lavishly goth and kooky, but at the same time, it also lacks originality. Too many Burton touches taken from previous Burton projects methinks.

Casting wise it's a bit of a miss for me. Whilst Jenna Ortega is solid as Wednesday (although, dare I say, not quite odd-looking enough and too attractive, for us goth folk at least), Luis Guzman is way too fat to be Gomez in my opinion. He kinda has the look, but Gomez is supposed to be a relatively fit and dashing Casanova type. Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn't have the right look, or cheekbones, and simply isn't a good actor (just remained famous for marrying Michael Douglas essentially). Isaac Ordonez has the chubby looks of Pugsley, but is way too tall, slim, and generally good-looking. Lurch looks like a crappy Halloween party makeup job. Whilst Fred Armisen is too slim for Fester, but looks okay. The rest of the cast are your standard bunch of young pretty actors and, now, out-of-date Hollywood stars looking for comebacks, or just old Burton movie cast stars.

Plot wise it's all a bit generic really. The entire series is set at Nevermore Academy, which is essentially Hogwarts, with practically all the same types of fantasy characters you would expect from any number of young people's fantasy fluff these days (Narnia, Golden Compass, Percy Jackson etc...). They've got werewolves, sirens, invisible people, witches, Hyde monsters, shape shifters, people that control the elements, zombies, vampires etc...I mean, I get why these characters would exist in this universe, but we've seen all this before many many times. This ENTIRE concept has been done to death now, and frankly, the bad CGI does not help matters.

A nice dark, macabre, occult theme running through it, but the inclusion of lighthearted comedy and (at times) quite gory horror, doesn't quite sit well, with me at least. This modern option to try and make things more gritty isn't all that. But the fact that all the other students at the academy seem to have incredible powers leaves Wednesday and the Addams gang looking a bit useless. I guess that's why they had to give Gomez and Pugsley these electrical superpowers, which was dumb. The fact Wednesday eventually gets an invisible friend and she still can't work it all out was also pretty daft. I was also amazed at just how many events this academy has throughout this series. It felt like every episode had some kind of big party/gathering/celebration or was leading up to one (the production and costume costs must have been high for this). This would also inevitably lead to some kind of Wednesday plan to thwart someone coming to fruition. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

I found myself wanting to see more Addams and less of everything else really. Really wanted to go to the Addams house! The whole monster murder mystery aspect is too tired, too Scooby-Doo, and all too easy to work out really. Making a TV series out of it kinda helps with the suspense and allows more character and world building; but that world is generic fantasy guff with generic monsters. It almost comes across like an old Saturday morning cartoon ('Gravedale High' anyone?), just with some minor horror elements. You could replace everything here with superheroes and not change a thing. 

The first series didn't really grab me to be honest. The story just didn't really engage me and was too cookie-cutter. The second series did feel a bit more interesting strangely enough. Again the plot wasn't anything amazing but it felt a bit more exciting. Overall it's hard to pinpoint where I sit here. I did like this series as a whole, but there's a lot that is cringe and any sense of originality has been buried deep in the murky depths. I can't help but feel this is a simple reskin of many other similar projects we've seen over the years, but with the Addams characters stuck on top. You could easily remove the Addams clan and insert anyone else, it wouldn't make any difference. I really did expect something a bit more freaky and bizarre from Burton surrounding this franchise. Heck! Even the 90's movies were more original than this. Maybe he should have stuck to the stop-motion animated idea.

6/10