Kraven the Hunter - Deep Dive
Join us for this latest installment of Cape or Cap, where we dive deep into Kraven the Hunter!
Merry Christmas you filthy animals! Here's hoping you're on the nice list as we’re reviewing Sony's latest film closing out their Spider-Man Universe as they hunt for a good conclusion with Kraven The Hunter - we're talking lions, tigers, bears (oh my!) and everything that gets hunted by the Marvel character Sergei Kravinoff - or maybe not. Time to find out if Kraven's hunt will be a mounted trophy on our walls or if he is coming up empty. We’ll break down the plot, dissect the characters, and answer your burning questions:
- Is this good storytelling?
- How does it compare to other films, comics, and larger narratives?
- What was happening behind the scenes during the creation of this production and after its release?
- And as always, is this a "cape" or a "cap"?
00:49:34 Cape or Cap Verdict
Referenced Materials:
- Amazing Spider-Man #1
- Amazing Spider-Man #15
- Kraven's Last Hunt Storyline
Hosts: Chamar Griffith and Andrew Tejada
Producers: Chamar Griffith and Andrew Tejada
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Transcript
No, I think they forgot Craven wasn't vixen. He doesn't have
Speaker:all the animal powers, like he can't see like a falcon when he
Speaker:wants to, he can't fly when he wants to, like vixen can.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Chamar Griffith and I'm Andrew Tejada, we're going
Speaker:through superhero productions to let you know if they're still
Speaker:fun or the hype around it was dumb on Cape or cap a Black Nerd
Speaker:superhero podcast you
Speaker:welcome to this week's installment of K board cap, a
Speaker:Black Nerd superhero podcast. My name is Chamar Griffith,
Speaker:codename comic. Shams and I am Andrew Tejada, codename Arete.
Speaker:Andrew and I have known each other since 1996
Speaker:that was the year the ghost and the darkness premiered. It's a
Speaker:film that's a fictionalized account of a real events of two
Speaker:lions called the Savo man eaters that absolutely tore apart all
Speaker:these construction workers in Kenya. So this movie depicted
Speaker:the struggle of people to beat these lions before the lions
Speaker:just ate everyone. And in the movie, there is a chance where
Speaker:someone claims to have killed a lion with a single gunshot,
Speaker:which, coincidentally, if it happened in Craven, the movie
Speaker:would be over much, much faster, because the plot would have
Speaker:never started.
Speaker:Alright, calling it right now. Also, most Jack character of
Speaker:this film is that damn lion. That wasn't Mufasa, that wasn't
Speaker:Simba, that wasn't even Aslan, that was the that was the the
Speaker:lion that lion king ripped off of, I think his name was Kimba,
Speaker:yeah, yeah. This is him all grown up, disgruntled about the
Speaker:fact that he ain't getting no money, no shine, no residuals.
Speaker:Yeah. Oh man, yes, we are. That's very true. If this movie
Speaker:did end of that single gunshot, we would have been,
Speaker:I don't know we would we have been saved from a terrible
Speaker:movie, or will we have not experienced the greatest film of
Speaker:all time? Seconding that to Morbius, as
Speaker:today, we are going to be talking for our holiday special,
Speaker:because Calendar Man has been bugging around in our ear to
Speaker:talk about this one particular movie, and that is Craven the
Speaker:hunter, the most highly anticipated movie from Sony this
Speaker:year.
Speaker:Bar. Bar is high on that one. Yes, very
Speaker:I gotta say, I'm also shocked at myself that I've seen every
Speaker:single Sony movie that has been released this year, which is
Speaker:surprising, because they were really pulling up MCU numbers.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. You know what? Um,
Speaker:some of these were almost really financially successful.
Speaker:Honestly, actually Venom three is the 10th highest grossing
Speaker:film of 2024 as as of
Speaker:December 23 so i Oh, look at that.
Speaker:Can I recommend it? Absolutely not. But
Speaker:yeah. In fact, if you want to know our true thoughts about you
Speaker:can just check out our previous holiday specials, um,
Speaker:but, but for Craven um, which did not have a similar run time
Speaker:to venom, which I think was actually longer than at 127
Speaker:minutes,
Speaker:I can confirm yes, it was longer than he's
Speaker:because, I mean, this is already jumping into the spoilers about
Speaker:some of the movie. I'm pretty sure it's because that lion
Speaker:probably took like, 5000 shots and just like, just kept on
Speaker:moving for 30,000 hours.
Speaker:That cost money, people
Speaker:and time, yes, definitely time with this film that got an R
Speaker:rating and was directed by JC Chander, who is also known for
Speaker:directing such films as triple frontier, which I do remember
Speaker:watching, I think either last year or something. It didn't
Speaker:come out last year, but I remember watching it last year,
Speaker:and honestly, it's an okay, slow pace action movie, in my
Speaker:opinion.
Speaker:Um, along with his list, we got all this lost Most Violent Year,
Speaker:all of which has pretty great actors. So I'm assuming this is
Speaker:why we got a couple of great ones in this film, Craven, the
Speaker:last Hunter, because he worked alongside Pedro Pascal, Oscar
Speaker:Isaac, Jessica Chastain, Robert Redford. A list is kind of
Speaker:extensive, but with this direction, we have to have our
Speaker:screenplay, which is put together by Richard wink, who is
Speaker:known for the equalizer film.
Speaker:Series,
Speaker:along with Expendables too. Oh, what a big
Speaker:which is not the worst Expendables food, no, not by
Speaker:far, not by far,
Speaker:as well as the Magnificent Seven.
Speaker:And, yeah, I think that was the one with
Speaker:Samuel Jackson and Chris Pratt. Yeah. It was like Marvel does
Speaker:cowboys, hmm.
Speaker:And speaking of Marvel, this net the people that they worked
Speaker:alongside for Richard, he worked alongside art Markham and Matt
Speaker:Holloway, who are known for writing Iron Man
Speaker:Punisher, war zone
Speaker:transformers, the last night Men in Black international
Speaker:Uncharted and my favorite tidbit from their career, the script
Speaker:for the Michael Bay Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie that
Speaker:was never used.
Speaker:You know, it's like, I've been playing Backyard Baseball
Speaker:recently, and there's a mechanic where your picture runs out of
Speaker:juice if you overuse their skills a lot. And I feel like
Speaker:that's what happened
Speaker:with the luck of this writer. I'm sure they have the best of
Speaker:intentions, but just the record so far is not looking hot. It
Speaker:looks like just recharge a little bit. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker:please, especially because I'm just gonna assume that they were
Speaker:the ones that had a hand in that rumored idea of making the
Speaker:teenage mu ninja turtles actually shape shifting aliens.
Speaker:Yeah, that become anthropomorphic turtles that
Speaker:somehow have ninja skills or something.
Speaker:I'm never going to not forget that idea of people, because we
Speaker:see some terrible ideas in film history, and I think that takes
Speaker:the cake, in my opinion,
Speaker:all right, but back to Craven. This movie currently has a 15%
Speaker:on Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:whoa, but wildly enough, 73%
Speaker:from audience scores.
Speaker:I'd like to meet some of these people.
Speaker:But the wildest thing of all is that I had to look this up
Speaker:because, you know, we, we've, I don't know if we talked about
Speaker:Morbius on this podcast through our jokes, we haven't talked
Speaker:about it in the episode, but like Andrew and I talk about
Speaker:Morbius and morbid time, and I looked it up. Morbius has the
Speaker:same Rotten Tomato scores amongst the critics, but Craven
Speaker:beats it by 2% amongst the audiences.
Speaker:So Craven versus Morbius showdown. Craven slightly beats
Speaker:Morbius. So I guess that's the question today. Does Craven beat
Speaker:Morbius?
Speaker:We will answer that right after this cast,
Speaker:as we have Aaron Taylor Johnson, who is playing Sergei carp
Speaker:kravinav, aka Craven the hunter. Um he his younger counterpart,
Speaker:is played by Levi Miller, who fun facts. You have seen him not
Speaker:only in the Supergirl TV series where he plays Carter grant, the
Speaker:son of Cat Grant, as well as Peter in the movie pan.
Speaker:Okay, sure, sure.
Speaker:Fred heck. Niner is Dimitri Griffith, who plays, uh,
Speaker:sergei's brother. Um, he, I don't have too much details on
Speaker:him. I'm pretty sure that he has some more things. I'm just
Speaker:loving the fact that, you know, because he must be a versatile
Speaker:actor, that made sense for him to be playing the chameleon in
Speaker:this movie with, sorry, he was also in Gladiator two this year.
Speaker:So Well, would you look at that?
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:you know, sometimes some people just need to help one and die.
Speaker:But
Speaker:that's
Speaker:just, uh, well, that brings it to a great segue into our next
Speaker:actor, where Russell Crowe, the original Gladiator, is their
Speaker:father. Uh, what was his first name? Again? Yeah. Nikolai
Speaker:Kroff, so who plays in this one, a ruthless crime lord and drug
Speaker:trafficker.
Speaker:He was so entertained that he needed a new avenue of income.
Speaker:He
Speaker:went from the Pope's exorcist to exercising people personally
Speaker:with some guns. Yes,
Speaker:next up Alessandro Nivola is Alexi sivik. I if I'm getting
Speaker:these right, I am very proud of myself right now.
Speaker:But he plays the rhino who we have seen last played by, I
Speaker:believe, Paul Giamatti.
Speaker:In the so in the so world of Sony Spider Man, I believe that
Speaker:was who played him in the and the credit scene of Spain's
Speaker:Spider Man. Two chaos to Andrew Garfield for you know, giving us
Speaker:some good Spider Man action there. And we also have
Speaker:Christopher Abbott, who plays a character we do not know, a
Speaker:character who is only referred to as the foreigner.
Speaker:I have so many thoughts
Speaker:about this,
Speaker:jumping into one right now. I need more.
Speaker:So much more.
Speaker:And last but not least, rounding our cast list, because while
Speaker:this movie is filled with people, a lot of them do end up
Speaker:dead. We have Ariana DeBose, who's playing Calypso, uh, who
Speaker:is described in this movie as a voodoo priestess and Cravens
Speaker:love interest.
Speaker:No, I'm the Voodoo priestess. That's factually just not even
Speaker:true.
Speaker:I don't even think there's a love interest between the two,
Speaker:not in this cut of the movie. Nope, definitely not. All right,
Speaker:so now that we've gone through our cast list, let's start the
Speaker:hunt for a cape with this cape or cap review of Craven, the
Speaker:hunter. The movie starts with a promising scene. Actually, it's
Speaker:it seems like Craven has been captured. He's on route to
Speaker:prison. He's in the middle of the Arctic somewhere, and just
Speaker:on this prison bus. And I don't know what it is with superhero
Speaker:movies and pee, and the last couple years, there's also a
Speaker:very specific moment where they're like, Hey everybody, go
Speaker:out and pee. And that's when they like, hey, Craven, get back
Speaker:on the bus. And it's like, what? I don't know what the obsession
Speaker:is. Please stop it. I don't want to. We know it's, it's, please
Speaker:don't do this anymore. It's like, no people do this, but
Speaker:please, we don't need this. Yeah, we don't need to see it on
Speaker:screen. We don't need to see Thanos in the bathroom, right?
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:So eventually he gets to this prison, and he finds a guy
Speaker:relatively quickly after, like, making some commotion,
Speaker:um, and goes, Hey, I'm actually here in prison on purpose
Speaker:because I want to kill you. Because, have you heard about
Speaker:this fictional person called the hunter? Well, that's me. It's
Speaker:me, Sergey Craven. Off is, is Craven? Craven the hunter,
Speaker:which, I mean, sure, okay. And then he proceeds to kill this
Speaker:man and use every ability, super strength, super jumping, super
Speaker:agility and his ability to communicate with animals like
Speaker:Eliza THORNBERRY to get out of the Arctic. And as he connects
Speaker:with the pilot, whose face we never see, and I still don't
Speaker:know who played the pilot, I think that's still a mystery.
Speaker:Like every great movie, right after this exciting opening
Speaker:action scene,
Speaker:we cut to 16 years earlier,
Speaker:and here we go for, I know we we've been toying, we've been
Speaker:thinking about the idea of awards for show for movies and
Speaker:shows that we've covered. We did it for when we're on yet another
Speaker:DC animated podcast for the DC amu. I'm already giving the
Speaker:award for most unnecessary flashback
Speaker:to this movie, because while most flashbacks are, you know, a
Speaker:hit or miss, it depends on how it's done.
Speaker:I don't think a flashback should last what is now in this movie,
Speaker:30 minutes we spend 20 to 30 minutes after introducing the
Speaker:actor who's playing our titular character, to show him at a
Speaker:younger age, to show his origin story. Now I recently re
Speaker:watched, just a quick tangent. I recently re watched the
Speaker:Christopher Reeve Superman because after the hype with the
Speaker:Superman trailer, I was just like wanting to get as much
Speaker:knowledge as possible about how cornsworth will properly portray
Speaker:Superman. And watching it, I realized that, wow, in Superman
Speaker:one, there is a full 30 or so minutes of pure origin story,
Speaker:again, at the beginning, before we see the suit, before we see
Speaker:the man in action, Craven was just like, we're just going to
Speaker:change that entirely when Sergei and his brother are picked up
Speaker:from school and it's announced by their father, played by
Speaker:Russell Crowe, that their mother has committed.
Speaker:The side. So we are so I'm taking you back home, where they
Speaker:I immediately jump into a hunting trip.
Speaker:Yes, his father copes with death by proving his manliness and
Speaker:going on a hunting trip with his sons. Um, while on this hunting
Speaker:trip, a scientist tries to make
Speaker:the Russell Crowe an offer, but he does refuse it, and this
Speaker:scientist will go on to be very important later, but completely
Speaker:just, completely unrelated to anything. We certainly cut away
Speaker:to a young Calypso who we haven't met the of age Calypso
Speaker:yet. So it's kind of weird that we're cutting back to a
Speaker:character we haven't met yet in the present time.
Speaker:So
Speaker:we see young Calypso talking to her grandmother, and her
Speaker:grandmother speaks entirely in exposition and tells her,
Speaker:basically, here's a vial and here's a tarot card with a lion
Speaker:on it. Both of these are going to be real important real soon,
Speaker:so just hold on to these.
Speaker:Um And goodbye, I guess. Um, yeah, that'll be the last time
Speaker:we see her
Speaker:and never saw her again. Um,
Speaker:so she happens to be in Africa at the same time that Craven is,
Speaker:and she's around as Craven encounters a lion, which they're
Speaker:hunting,
Speaker:but he feels it's unfair to do so with a gun. How else are you
Speaker:gonna do this, bro?
Speaker:So I would say this is probably the most comic accurate thought
Speaker:process for Craven, because in his mind, the character never
Speaker:liked using guns to hunt. He does bare hands and bladed
Speaker:weapons. However, it does not play out in the way that we have
Speaker:seen Craven interact across every other medium, where
Speaker:instead, his father rolls up, shoots at the lion, which then
Speaker:causes the lion to attack Craven.
Speaker:And again, this is the most jacked lion this. This is
Speaker:already won our most jacked character award, because this
Speaker:line might as well be fitting, because this line got shot at
Speaker:least three times and will still breathe in, dragging Craven off
Speaker:to do assuming to to you to eat them as prey. And here it is
Speaker:that we have this very
Speaker:mystical looking scene in terms of just like, trying to, like,
Speaker:let's you know, like I'm just cooking with a little bit of
Speaker:Microsoft PowerPoint here, real quick, do a little star swipe
Speaker:and whatnot, where you hear the calls for Craven from his friend
Speaker:from his family, um, but he's dying at this point, and then
Speaker:somehow again, to bring Calypso in, which, I gotta say, look as
Speaker:a black person. I thought it was weird that they named this kid
Speaker:Calypso in the 21st century,
Speaker:given the fact that she, well, yes, she has like an African
Speaker:heritage, it seems. It didn't seem like her family would have
Speaker:named her Calypso. This should have been like a nickname, if
Speaker:anything, or even a middle name.
Speaker:Maybe her grandmother named her. She saw Pirates of the
Speaker:Caribbean, and she was like, Hey, I got a suggestion for you.
Speaker:Uh, what year is it? Who knows? That's also a thing we're it's
Speaker:never clear what year this is,
Speaker:not like it would matter.
Speaker:Um, so Calypso runs away from her parents, who put in point
Speaker:zero effort at locating their child after she runs away in the
Speaker:Middle East, and she's like, Oh, well, I seen a lion here. I'm
Speaker:seeing Cravens, limp body, so I'm going to use this potion.
Speaker:And she gives him the potion. So unfortunately, it's not a
Speaker:radioactive lion bite that gives him his powers. It's this
Speaker:potion, and
Speaker:he makes a pretty quick recovery, but his father insists
Speaker:on him going home, and shortly after going home, kind of apro,
Speaker:pro of nothing, Craven just unloads on his dad, and it's
Speaker:like, I'm I'm leaving. And he sneaks out, leaving his brother
Speaker:behind, and then just lives in the forest, um,
Speaker:in Russia, some remote Russian forest,
Speaker:and when poachers.
Speaker:Show up. He just decides to kill them
Speaker:graphically. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, they do try to kill him
Speaker:first, but
Speaker:yeah, he just decides, hey, you know what? Today's the day to
Speaker:break bad and kills them. And that's, that's all the
Speaker:explanation you'll need, because we're back in the present time,
Speaker:baby. But just to For those keeping track at home in terms
Speaker:of like, how Sony's villain creates his villains, yes, there
Speaker:was another case of blood that was interacted that with Craven,
Speaker:with the lion, that while it was definitely mystical, I'm not
Speaker:sure if the blood interacted with the mystical um plants that
Speaker:the mystical herbs that he and took on as this is a question
Speaker:for Sony, not us. But
Speaker:now that we've popped back to the President, we're still on
Speaker:this plane ride, so I'm just going to assume that this was a
Speaker:this. This all happened in his memory. And as he gets off the
Speaker:plane again, we don't know who the pilot is. We don't know who
Speaker:it is that's even sending him on these missions. Um, we learn
Speaker:about we kind of immediately hop over to Craven back at home.
Speaker:He's set up, cleaned up this place a little bit compared to
Speaker:when he was a kid, and he gets a phone call from his brother, and
Speaker:his brother has this very unique skill where he can imitate the
Speaker:voices of other people really well. So he pretends to be their
Speaker:father, also to clear up to they are half brothers. So this is
Speaker:another point of contention between their family, because it
Speaker:does seem like Sergei is,
Speaker:I think actually, Dimitri might have been the child of an affair
Speaker:that Nikolai had russell crowe's character. It is not really
Speaker:explained, but it does seem like Nikolai does have more love for
Speaker:Sergei mother than he does for the mother, who's never actually
Speaker:explained of Dimitri. And it does seem that after leaving his
Speaker:brother to go to be with his father and to do his own thing
Speaker:Dimitri, they do still have a bond together, where he does try
Speaker:to visit his brother, and he does intend to go to London to
Speaker:go see Dimitri on his birthday, to go celebrate with him. But
Speaker:before he does that, obviously, we we just spent 30 minutes of
Speaker:showing Cravens origin story of using his powers and killing
Speaker:people. They're showing him killing people by using his
Speaker:hunting skills to go and do that. So be we have to do it
Speaker:again, like is Craven the hunter. So there's a whole other
Speaker:scene in which, honestly, the movie turns into arrow,
Speaker:because Craven comes along these poachers. He tells them he
Speaker:tried. He fights them all off. And I gotta say, it's a fun
Speaker:scene, but I couldn't help but not see the parallels playing
Speaker:Sony Spider Man one and Miles Morales games, because Craven
Speaker:leaf through the cars the exact same way.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean this whole action scene, this is where we can just
Speaker:get into it. The movie is structurally broken
Speaker:because it starts three times.
Speaker:You can start the movie at the prison escape. You can start the
Speaker:movie at the flashback, which some would say makes logical
Speaker:sense. But who am I?
Speaker:Or you could start the movie right here. Some people roll up
Speaker:to Cravens nature reserve. He stops them from poaching, and
Speaker:you demonstrate his powers. This could be an effective, really
Speaker:fast, quick intro. You could pepper in a little bit of his
Speaker:backstory as needed, but, um, this is, this is where the
Speaker:movie, I guess you could say, starts. But you can't even say
Speaker:that because we also cut randomly
Speaker:to a scene with Alexi stevich, sorry, I butchered that. I so
Speaker:sorry. Um, he's meeting with a couple of gangsters trying to
Speaker:make them a deal, but they don't take them seriously. So one
Speaker:shoots him, but he reveals that he has a pack that if he unplugs
Speaker:one little pipe, his skin hardens, and he becomes, it
Speaker:comes as hard. His skin becomes as hard as a rhinos. So he's
Speaker:bulletproof.
Speaker:Um, but he, immediately, after proving his bulletproof, plugs
Speaker:it back in, I
Speaker:don't know, the logic. And then he has a sniper shoot two of the
Speaker:guys I
Speaker:anyway, um, so he sends the one guy that survives to meet with
Speaker:Russell Crowe to try to assassinate Russell Crowe in the
Speaker:middle of a restaurant. But Russell Crowe survives.
Speaker:Dimitri survives.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:yeah, you could say this scene is pointless, because nothing
Speaker:results from this scene except you know that Alexi the rhino is
Speaker:gonna attack Russell Crowe. But I mean,
Speaker:again, you could have cut that other scene and it wouldn't have
Speaker:really made that much of a difference. Yeah, because it's a
Speaker:good story already where it's just like, it's two rival gangs.
Speaker:Yeah, we're not, we're not so oblivious to gang war that we
Speaker:don't know that this happens like we we it's part of our
Speaker:stories, from what we've seen, just in general, like everybody
Speaker:knows, there's always going to be a fight for land, it was
Speaker:going to be a fight for territory. There's always going
Speaker:to be a fight for product. There are going to be leaders for this
Speaker:fight. Here it is, that is it?
Speaker:So now that this happens, Craven ends up meeting up with his
Speaker:brother. They have a very great bonding moment. Unfortunately,
Speaker:though,
Speaker:this is where we get a chance to see more of Dimitris
Speaker:understanding inside of things, of how he's experienced his
Speaker:upbringing, where he's just like his father, which we just seen
Speaker:in the scene earlier, tends to treat him as like a weak
Speaker:individual, and Sergei, he's just like, No, you're not that.
Speaker:Unfortunately, though, it gets completely interrupted when
Speaker:Russell Crowe's character comes in, and it's like, apparently,
Speaker:seems to be like the first time that they're all have been in
Speaker:the room together since Craven had left, and they they take a
Speaker:drink together because it's Dimitris birthday. Dimitri and
Speaker:Craven go back up to their room where Craven he's unable to
Speaker:sleep because, I'm assuming it's just because it's too
Speaker:comfortable for him, or he's just too upset about being near
Speaker:his father for this extended period of time. So he decides to
Speaker:go and sleep outside, and then we immediately wake back up to
Speaker:him heading back to the place, he finds that it's been
Speaker:ransacked, and he finds that Demetri has been kidnapped. So
Speaker:he uses his abilities, one of which I'm just calling
Speaker:animalistic mass destruction, because he's just basically
Speaker:leaping from side to side, breaking down glass mirrors and
Speaker:whatnot. He also is never really explained, is able to see vast
Speaker:distances, like I understand that animals can see at like, an
Speaker:enhanced distance compared to humans, but the way that he sees
Speaker:it is like he's watching it through a like a telescope. And
Speaker:I kind of wanted that to be explained. Of just like, I don't
Speaker:think lions can do that. If they can't, hey, I'm not a zoologist,
Speaker:but like, I don't think they could do that.
Speaker:No, I think they forgot, Craven wasn't vixen. He doesn't have
Speaker:all the animal powers, like he can't see like a falcon when he
Speaker:wants to. He can't fly when he wants to, like vixen can. Vixen
Speaker:is very simple. She can use the power of one animal at a time.
Speaker:Maybe in some versions, you can do some simultaneously, but
Speaker:typically one at a time. Here it's like radioactive lion
Speaker:magic, and then he can do whatever animal he wants, like
Speaker:whatever power I know man, he has no fall damage.
Speaker:And his only weakness seems that when they eventually, the chase
Speaker:eventually takes them to a helicopter over the water. He's
Speaker:not on he's unable to keep up and in the water. So I guess he
Speaker:has, he's weak to water. I don't know.
Speaker:Um, you think you have a power of a fish at the bare minimum?
Speaker:Maybe that's the one he can't um, so here again, because the
Speaker:movie loves introducing plot threads. So the whole thing,
Speaker:there's a whole thing where people don't know Craven is the
Speaker:hunter, so they're doing a mystery investigation and, like,
Speaker:figure out who the hunter is. So this is where, back at the
Speaker:prison, Craven escaped from a man known only as The foreigner,
Speaker:because he's not from anywhere.
Speaker:Sees a guard. A guard has a gun on him, and he just says, 123,
Speaker:and disappears. And when he reappears, he's behind the guard
Speaker:and is able to easily kill the guard. So you're like, oh, super
Speaker:speed.
Speaker:Um, illusions.
Speaker:You don't know, and it doesn't matter, because now Craven, the
Speaker:greatest tracker in the world, able to hunt everyone, is going
Speaker:to ask for help to hunt someone.
Speaker:Yeah, because.
Speaker:This is where we get a chance to finally meet Arianna bozas
Speaker:character, Calypso. We last saw her.
Speaker:You know, when her grandmother died, is when she the last time
Speaker:she saw her as well.
Speaker:But in this scene in particular, it's, it's not even known. It's
Speaker:actually her. But what she talks about how she had a friend who
Speaker:unfortunately lost their life due to some trafficker of some
Speaker:sort, when and his friend was investigating in the manner, and
Speaker:she's a lawyer, and she actually calls out that it was this
Speaker:person who was responsible for her friend's death. So Craven
Speaker:goes up, scares her. They get a chance to talk, and he shares
Speaker:that like it's been him who's been handling all the like he
Speaker:was he killed the person that killed her friend and hoping
Speaker:that it was a way to thank her for her help. And when she
Speaker:reveals that, like he knows that she was the one that gave him
Speaker:the card, and she's like, how did you know? And he's like,
Speaker:I've been hunting for you my entire life, because I'm the
Speaker:greatest hunter. And it's like, Why does it take you, like,
Speaker:1516, years to find her then,
Speaker:yeah, to create this Hunter, if you haven't even completed that
Speaker:one quest, I and also, it's like, he knows who the rhino is.
Speaker:He's familiar with this Rhino guy. And I get it. You see some
Speaker:random guys take him. You don't know, but wouldn't it have made
Speaker:so much more sense for the movie. I'm already doing
Speaker:alterations. But wouldn't it made more sense if the foreigner
Speaker:kidnaps his brother, and he's like, legit, I don't know who
Speaker:this dude is, and then he goes, sorry, under the Bose, and is
Speaker:like, Yo, have you heard of somebody who can, like, do super
Speaker:speed? And she's like, Oh yeah, we've heard of like, somebody
Speaker:using a weird associate. And he's like, who's somebody using
Speaker:this weird associate? Oh, it's this guy. And he's like,
Speaker:damn it, it's the rhino. And then he goes and is able to
Speaker:track off the that one lead like
Speaker:I so it seems so obvious. It was exactly what I was thinking,
Speaker:too. Because, like, yeah, go. Like, immediately after watching
Speaker:this movie, I was just like, why wasn't the foreigner, the more
Speaker:shadowy hidden behind the scenes figure that was actually
Speaker:manipulating everything? Because it would have been especially
Speaker:because just hopping ahead when foreigner and the rhino or Alexi
Speaker:finally meet, it's like, oh, I'm now just going to join on into
Speaker:your battle. And it's like they made it seem like he could,
Speaker:like, finesse so many things behind the scenes that I'm just
Speaker:like, Well, why wasn't he just manipulating everybody from
Speaker:beginning, especially because he has compared to Alexi, the
Speaker:foreigner, according to this story, had a more direct reason
Speaker:for why he wanted to kill Craven.
Speaker:Yeah, it was like his brother or something, his mentor or
Speaker:something, was killed by Yeah, that was like, and it's like
Speaker:Alexi had nothing. He was just like, Oh, I just want to, I
Speaker:recognize that your father runs the business, so I just want to
Speaker:take over. So he, he stole the other brother. But it's just
Speaker:like foreigner had a real direct reason for being the main
Speaker:villain against,
Speaker:uh, Craven. So
Speaker:also, another thing about an issue in the storytelling, if
Speaker:just going back to the whole Calypso and Craven asking for
Speaker:help, he's like, I need your help finding someone, bro,
Speaker:you're the greatest hunter. How are you unable to find someone
Speaker:as the greatest hunter?
Speaker:Yeah, and the conflict here, too is so quickly resolved, because
Speaker:initially, Calypso doesn't want to help because she knows he's
Speaker:going to kill people, and she has, understandably, she doesn't
Speaker:want to be an accessory to murder, but essentially, she,
Speaker:within a span of 10 minutes, decides I'm actually okay with
Speaker:being accessory to mass murder, and gives him the information he
Speaker:needs.
Speaker:This is also where the again, when you are watching this movie
Speaker:because of the pacing is so slow and like deliberate throughout
Speaker:the movie, you might not notice how easily the logic falls
Speaker:apart, but in the next scene, it doesn't matter. We're skipping
Speaker:around. We can.
Speaker:We might as
Speaker:well we might as well too.
Speaker:But there's a scene where the rhino proposes to Alexi,
Speaker:sorry, the same person the rhino proposes to Dimitri, hey, how? I
Speaker:don't know. I know you don't like your dad and I don't like
Speaker:your dad. So how about this? We team up. We knock your dad off,
Speaker:and then you become the new head of your dad's crime family,
Speaker:which does some crimes, drugs, I don't know really what he does,
Speaker:um,
Speaker:and then we team up, and we become super,
Speaker:like super crime lords. So his the rhinos plan was to hopefully
Speaker:kidnap.
Speaker:Dimitri in a hopes that he could convince Dimitri to partner up
Speaker:with him after being kidnapped.
Speaker:And then, if Dimitri didn't, he would kill
Speaker:Dimitri
Speaker:and then still kill the dead. But also, did he forget there
Speaker:was another brother
Speaker:more of a threat than the rest of them? Yeah,
Speaker:and if he doesn't know that brother is the hunter,
Speaker:then interesting. But if he does know the brother is the hunter
Speaker:and wants to kill the hunter and kidnap Dimitri to lure the
Speaker:hunter out. Why did you kid? Did you kidnap Dimitri to lure the
Speaker:hunter out? But you didn't know that, or did you kidnap Dimitri
Speaker:for your COVID? What are you doing? Alexi, why did you do
Speaker:this?
Speaker:Oh, man. I, you know, I thought, I thought Batman Unlimited was
Speaker:going to be the thing that broke you, but it seems it might have
Speaker:been great in live action. This is
Speaker:why did madam Webb make more sense?
Speaker:Oh my gosh. But let's try to see if you can wrap this up because,
Speaker:mainly because I I'm just exhausted over trying to figure
Speaker:out the hurdles that Craven was hopping over when.
Speaker:So now that he knows his brother's been kidnapped, he
Speaker:calls Ariana the Bose or Calypso for help. And she's she, there's
Speaker:a scene in where she sees some people entering her her law
Speaker:firm, and where she's like, I see five people. They don't they
Speaker:look like they don't belong here,
Speaker:just five guys in suits. They're not in track suits. They're not
Speaker:in like, with carrying bats. They're just five guys in suits
Speaker:walking in formation, barely right.
Speaker:So they head on out together, and they head on back to where
Speaker:Craven stays, complete costume change and whatnot, where they
Speaker:get attacked by a snow leopard they look like,
Speaker:which I thought was weird, because I was just like, you're
Speaker:in a sunny location. I don't understand how snow leopard
Speaker:could be out here again. Now, zoologists, if there's any out
Speaker:there, please confirm if this is true or not. There's a natural
Speaker:habitat, but it finds out that they're just friends, um, Craven
Speaker:and the snow leopard are just friends. Who they they just
Speaker:attack each other at times. And let's just forget about that,
Speaker:because now we gotta head on over to Cravens place, where
Speaker:Calypso sees everything. She's messing around with stuff, sees
Speaker:all of his weaponry. She even finds the little capsule that
Speaker:she gave them that had the mystical herb and concoction
Speaker:that helps save his life. And as she sees that, she starts
Speaker:playing around for crossbow, where she almost hit someone
Speaker:fit, where she Cravens a little worried about her using it, but
Speaker:she says states,
Speaker:Oh, it's okay. I had training at us at a at a summer camp for
Speaker:this,
Speaker:yeah, yeah, all those summer camps, the tree cross teach
Speaker:crossbows to kids, yeah. Um, it is at this time, coincidentally,
Speaker:that after her mouth is CGI to match some ADR dialog that was
Speaker:added in post. Um,
Speaker:that does happen. We're not making that up. That happens in
Speaker:this movie? Um,
Speaker:they're Alexis guys now are hunting Craven instead of luring
Speaker:him out to where they got Warner, yeah, but instead of
Speaker:luring them to another place where they have advantage, they
Speaker:decide to try to ambush him.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:you guys, do you? I guess
Speaker:so. Craven easily, tears through the goons with bloody bear traps
Speaker:and all kinds of means of dispatch. But then the foreigner
Speaker:catches up to him, and the foreigner does his hypnosis
Speaker:thing hits Craven with some neurotoxins that make him see
Speaker:things he fears, so he sees
Speaker:spiders like he was in the Amazon rainforest before
Speaker:Calypsos grandmother died and hadn't seen her since, and
Speaker:Just as the foreigners about to kill Craven
Speaker:and DeVos shows up and kills the foreigner with the crossbow,
Speaker:saying, Thank God I went to summer camp or something like
Speaker:that. Um, so
Speaker:again, remember that conflict she had about killing people
Speaker:that's that's done now, it doesn't matter.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:So now that the foreigner is gone, it's time for Craven
Speaker:versus the rhino. Y'all for the fate of Dimitri.
Speaker:So yeah, they, uh, they're all near the assumption that Craven
Speaker:is dead, because at one point, Cravens the neurotoxin that he
Speaker:was hit with apparently supposed to shut down his bodily organs.
Speaker:Thankfully, though, Calypso had a another one of the mystical
Speaker:concoctions in jars, which Craven was just like, you know,
Speaker:I've been looking for this, and I was hoping to recreate it. And
Speaker:then she was just like, Well, I wasn't going to share all my
Speaker:family secrets. Um, sure. Okay, cool. Like, I understand that
Speaker:this is how it plays out in the comics, in terms of like
Speaker:Calypso, is the one that is providing him with the medical
Speaker:or medicinal concoction of these plants that give him the the
Speaker:strength of the Panther. Um, but it brings him back to life,
Speaker:which causes now leading us into this battle Cravens uses the in
Speaker:an earliest scene, he has a heart to heart moment with a
Speaker:buffalo stampede just mocking Mufasa and Simba here in our
Speaker:presence, though, I did say so, he uses the same buffalo
Speaker:stampede to get the to attack the cars that are transferring
Speaker:the rhino, his goons and Dimitri, and upon freeing them,
Speaker:this is when Alexis, just like, you know what enough is enough,
Speaker:he unlatches the the tube is connected to his body that's
Speaker:stopping him from becoming more of his Rhino figure. And
Speaker:actually just going back real quick, because we have to, I
Speaker:feel like we have to explain this particular part out.
Speaker:Because, honestly, this was the only part that I feel that makes
Speaker:the most sense. As a common book fan of how Alexi got his Rhino
Speaker:abilities, he explains to Dimitri that, hey, I was a weak
Speaker:man like you. First off, didn't need that in my little
Speaker:explanation there, but that's what he tells him. And he said,
Speaker:I went to this man in New York, this doctor named Miles Warren.
Speaker:For comic book fans, we know this as the person named The
Speaker:Jackal. He's the one that creates the clones of Peter
Speaker:Parker, which led to the creation of Ben Riley as well as
Speaker:Kane, who ends up becoming Scarlet Spider, and also another
Speaker:version of Spider Man, as well as another villain that comes
Speaker:about, but this also created the Gwen Stacy clone, but that's a
Speaker:episode for another day. He tells him that, like this man
Speaker:provided him with the power, and this power was to turn him into
Speaker:a rhino, but because it was so painful on his body, he needed
Speaker:the concoction to also stop him from turning into the rival,
Speaker:because it hurt his body so much, and now, then this moment
Speaker:of desperation, he's just like, You know what? Forget it. Takes
Speaker:it out, turns it to honestly, we'll say better CGI than the
Speaker:doomsday and Batman versus Superman Donald justice, but it
Speaker:was not the best look I would have expected for rhino in a
Speaker:live action production.
Speaker:Yeah, and the battle is fine for a while. You know it is. It is
Speaker:actually one of the better battles of the movie,
Speaker:but
Speaker:it does have a very anti climactic ending where Craven
Speaker:hits rhino in his really, no better way to say this, his
Speaker:backpack, stomach port, he jabs a spear there and then the rhino
Speaker:gets stampeded By buffalo, which kills him for some reason, even
Speaker:though he's supposed to be indestructible,
Speaker:I don't know. Man, um, so,
Speaker:because if you damage the port, because the thing is, the the
Speaker:port backpack is keeping rhinos powers in check. So if the port,
Speaker:if the backpack is removed, if the the tube is cut. Then, in
Speaker:theory, he stays full Rhino form, but he gets stabbed. But
Speaker:then d, d rhinos, even though it's the opposite should be
Speaker:happening, right? He should be coming stronger in theory, not
Speaker:weaker without the backpack.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. This is why I was
Speaker:this is because I was just like, why not just make it be that,
Speaker:like the backpack, he kind of uses it on, like a dial system,
Speaker:thinking, like Bane, like, have the backpack, but he has it on
Speaker:and turns it enough just to be impervious, like he still looks
Speaker:the same, and when he gets shot, it makes sense for him to be
Speaker:bulletproof but still look human. But then when he gets
Speaker:frustrated, he turns it all the way up, turns himself into a
Speaker:rhino. That way we can have a better build up. Versus like,
Speaker:let's constantly play around in the scene of him turn.
Speaker:Into Rhino little by little, or use it be that, like, you know,
Speaker:he turns the dial, or has some kind of like button system,
Speaker:whereas, like, his hands change with the with each kind of
Speaker:button, so, like, he's a better fighter until he decides to go
Speaker:full Rhino.
Speaker:But we didn't, we didn't get paid to write movies. Nope, no,
Speaker:we just get paid to watch what happens, which is
Speaker:Alexi
Speaker:reveals now
Speaker:that
Speaker:the person who revealed that Craven was the hunter was his
Speaker:dad.
Speaker:So Alexi apparently did all that. I'm not gonna even try to
Speaker:logically go backwards on this, but essentially, his dad was
Speaker:responsible. They're saying um,
Speaker:and
Speaker:he um, Craven goes to confront his dad in the forest, who
Speaker:confirms, yep. This was part of my plan to make my family
Speaker:strong, and Craven lets his dad get eaten by a bear.
Speaker:Um hard cut a year later,
Speaker:um Dimitri figures out that Craven was responsible for their
Speaker:dad's death. Dimitri actually cares about his dad and how, for
Speaker:God knows whatever reason, um,
Speaker:and
Speaker:this is where Dmitri reveals he got experimented by miles
Speaker:Warren, so now he can shape shift his face.
Speaker:Um, he's the chameleon now, but even though he shapeshift his
Speaker:face, he can't shape shift his height, so I imagine that might
Speaker:be an issue when he's imitating his much taller brother. Oh,
Speaker:yeah, very, very much. So um,
Speaker:but now with this comedian teas, there's one more thing to do
Speaker:before this movie can end.
Speaker:Yes, we have our final scene in which Dimitri tells Craven that,
Speaker:hey, father left you something and and I'm assuming it was
Speaker:supposed to be like a weird way of a callback, where Craven when
Speaker:he was in his flashback younger self, he came across his
Speaker:mother's leathers. His father left him a leather as well, and
Speaker:in it, he states, okay, we are a family of hunters. This is what
Speaker:we do. We are going to we are supposed to be the greatest
Speaker:hunters of all time, something we omitted to share because I
Speaker:felt like it was appropriate to say at this moment was that
Speaker:after Craven had been saved from his lion attack, his father, I
Speaker:guess, decided again, because he handles death by enacting death,
Speaker:decides to go and find the lion again and kills it. So he has it
Speaker:as a trope, a trophy in the space upon crave His return when
Speaker:he was younger from the hospital. So He then tells him
Speaker:that, hey, you are supposed to be the greatest hunter. This is
Speaker:how we are as a family, and you need a suit that is befitting of
Speaker:that. And it has shown that he had the lion's head
Speaker:stitched up and made into a vest, a fur lined vest for
Speaker:Craven that matches up a little bit to his more comic book
Speaker:accurate counterpart,
Speaker:and as he sits on the, I guess the make believe throne of Like
Speaker:his father, claiming him to be the greatest hunter. This is
Speaker:when Craven decides, Okay, I guess here it's establishing
Speaker:that he and his father are cool now that he's dead and he's just
Speaker:going to take over his father's mantle of the crime business and
Speaker:become a great hunter like his father. The end,
Speaker:very confused about the intentions, very confused about
Speaker:the ending.
Speaker:All I gotta say is that I'm very sure that that vest does not
Speaker:keep anybody warm in any way, shape or form,
Speaker:not even close. It just his abs are exposed. His arms were
Speaker:exposed. Oh, and if you're also looking for that shot in the
Speaker:trailer where he's wearing the vest and he lights a torch
Speaker:that's not in the movie. Oh, yeah.
Speaker:I don't know what scene that would have been or where that
Speaker:would have fit in, since he doesn't get the vest until the
Speaker:very last scene, but yes, it's not there.
Speaker:All right, so that was Craven, the last Hunter Sony's latest
Speaker:and now officially their last installment into Sony Spider Man
Speaker:universe featuring his amazing villains. Uh,
Speaker:in terms of our caper cap review, you've probably heard
Speaker:how we're already feeling about it, but Andrew, what do you
Speaker:think, did Craven go out into the jungle and what did he find?
Speaker:Did he find a cape, or did.
Speaker:Find a cap. He found a lion fur covered cap. Man, oh, man,
Speaker:structurally again, this movie is just broken. I don't know why
Speaker:they chose to tell the events in this way, the huge timeline
Speaker:skips the character motivations. You can't I cannot explain what
Speaker:Randalls plan is. I cannot explain what Cravens dad plan
Speaker:is. I can barely explain what Cravens plan was this whole
Speaker:time, besides being green arrow, um, his powers are unlimited.
Speaker:He faces no consequences whatsoever.
Speaker:I really don't know
Speaker:how this was. I tried to read through the behind the scenes to
Speaker:try to understand how we got here. I still can't understand
Speaker:this isn't even a movie. To me. This is like a proof of concept
Speaker:of like, or like a bad TV pilot where they're still, like,
Speaker:ironing out the kinks of the writing and where they're going
Speaker:to go this season. But is this a movie? Is this a complete film
Speaker:experience? No, and sadly to say, I do think Morbius is a
Speaker:better structured movie than than this. At least his
Speaker:flashback was only like 510 minutes, so
Speaker:I'm cool with it better than this. Um,
Speaker:what do you think
Speaker:about this is a k4 cap.
Speaker:I mean, going along with that
Speaker:fur line cap, I'm just going to add a
Speaker:hunter's cap as well too.
Speaker:This is, this is, I'm, you know, I think that I'm, like, even
Speaker:just thinking about Morbius. Morbius had moments in which it
Speaker:was like, comical, or like, you had like, one person that was
Speaker:like, seemed to be really trying to push the boundary in terms
Speaker:of, like, Hey, I understand this is bad. So I'm either gonna go
Speaker:really literally, like, meme quality with my stuff, or I'm
Speaker:just gonna just have fun with it and just call it a day. I got
Speaker:the paycheck. It doesn't even seem here like anybody really
Speaker:wanted to be truly invested in this film, from the way that is
Speaker:cut now, like if things were flipped around, if flashbacks
Speaker:started at the beginning, if
Speaker:character motivations and team up, started in different
Speaker:locations, or even just hey, at the bare minimum, I, you know,
Speaker:I'm shocked to say this. Did we even really need Ariana deboses
Speaker:character in this? Because I felt like,
Speaker:which was a shame, because I was like, I great actress, Oscar
Speaker:Horthy, actress, and I felt like she was absolutely wasted in
Speaker:this film, just to be like, Oh, hey, we she, we have to have a
Speaker:Calypso in this. But they weren't true to any of the stuff
Speaker:that is true about her. Like everything just seems to be
Speaker:like, she's even herself. She's just, like, new to this whole
Speaker:entire world. So I'm more upset about this movie for just kind
Speaker:of like, wasting a lot of people's times. In fact, I feel
Speaker:like Russell Crowe pushed the boundaries on certain things
Speaker:when it's like, Yes, I think some of his scenes were better
Speaker:than what this movie was calling for which is wild that you have
Speaker:so many great actors in a film. And granted, it is a superhero
Speaker:film, you're supposed to understand that, supposed to
Speaker:have some sense of fiction and not be as serious in certain
Speaker:aspects of like your typical drama, where most of these
Speaker:actors are portrayed, are sorry, are acting in but like,
Speaker:none of the story makes sense, none of this. It's just feels
Speaker:like, I like it's, I think the TV pilot that's like, still a
Speaker:concept of a plan is a great way to describe it. I was thinking,
Speaker:this is just proof to me that, once again, Sony is great with
Speaker:video games. They are terrible with, with with movies. Somehow,
Speaker:I don't understand how venom is the only movie that has been
Speaker:coming out strong, that came out strong, and even that fell apart
Speaker:by the third one.
Speaker:Yeah, I think, I think this movie
Speaker:was also struggling very tonally, because there's a scene
Speaker:where Rhino finds out some news, and he goes
Speaker:just like that, and it's like, you can't expect me to take this
Speaker:seriously as a
Speaker:a family drama or a mystery. I don't really know what it.
Speaker:Supposed to be, what even genre it is.
Speaker:I really don't know what the intent was, and I'll give, I'll
Speaker:give you guys a three minute pitch of how to start this movie
Speaker:that might have been
Speaker:interesting. This is my art day alteration. We're throwing out
Speaker:the whole everything. We're throwing out everything. There's
Speaker:no childhood flashback. No, we're not doing that. We're
Speaker:gonna start this movie with
Speaker:um Craven and Dimitri. Are, you know, forced um to hunt. And you
Speaker:see Craven, he's just using blades. Dimitri has a gun, but
Speaker:he's nervous to use it, and Craven takes care of a hunt very
Speaker:last minute, very exciting. He's just human,
Speaker:and is able to kill a creature by himself, getting much praise
Speaker:from his father and his mother is there, but she's a little
Speaker:concerned. She doesn't like the hunting, but she she tolerates
Speaker:it. She much prefers her sweet boy, Dimitri, who sings for her
Speaker:in these voices, everything's going cool.
Speaker:You find out they are in charge of a crime family, but
Speaker:everything's going cool. And then one day through the camp,
Speaker:this beast, you know, not a lion. They you know, you could
Speaker:put a tease that it might have been a lion, but it's not a
Speaker:lion. Some beast rips through the camp, kills the mother,
Speaker:seriously, wounds um
Speaker:Dimitri and Craven, and the only way to save them is you do an
Speaker:experimental serum from miles Warren. Miles Warren gives them
Speaker:the serum Craven comes out with, you know, the suite of powers,
Speaker:Dimitris powers don't manifest. They don't know what's going on
Speaker:with that. But Craven gets all these powers, and his father
Speaker:says, Hey, Craven, if we want to get this freak. These are a list
Speaker:of people that you'll have to go through. And he works with his
Speaker:father as the hunter, learning his new abilities to hunt down
Speaker:to get to the top of the Syndicate, which is Rhino, um,
Speaker:you find out was the beast that killed their mother. So that's
Speaker:the that's the launch point. I would do no childhood flashback.
Speaker:Wouldn't forget about all that. It's just a guy trying to get
Speaker:revenge for the people who killed his mom. And then later
Speaker:you can do a setup reveal that, you know, somehow Russell Crowe
Speaker:orchestrated these events. Maybe he paid the rhino to kill his
Speaker:wife
Speaker:at the beginning, and then miles Warren had a connection to
Speaker:Rhino. Yeah. Like, keep that. He saw who? Yeah, I was gonna say
Speaker:another thing you could add to it's just like I kind of, given
Speaker:the fact that this is the first time we ever seen Camilla in a
Speaker:live action, I would say, like, I had a love hate relationship
Speaker:to the style of his face towards the end of the film. I think we
Speaker:can include the mask in that, like, just say that he has to,
Speaker:like, the disfigurement that he experienced, and with the
Speaker:experimental treatment, even though his powers never
Speaker:manifested, he still had to end up wearing this mask, whether it
Speaker:be like his father kind of mandated it on him, or he was
Speaker:just like, this is I'm afraid to show my true face after the
Speaker:incident, or anything like that. Here it is. This is a great this
Speaker:way we have like a common, accurate looking chameleon for
Speaker:an extended period of time. Yeah, and it would have been fun
Speaker:to see Dimitri be more active and because in this movie,
Speaker:Craven just gets wherever he wants at any time with no
Speaker:obstacles whatsoever. So maybe if you take away some of his
Speaker:super abilities and put, like, one of the leads to the rhino in
Speaker:a facility that they can't get into with brute force. He can't
Speaker:just, like, open the steel doors. This would be a great
Speaker:time for Dimitri to use his powers of disguise to get Craven
Speaker:past security, maybe to imitate a few people along the way.
Speaker:Maybe at one point, Craven like trying to hit on somebody hot
Speaker:and Dimitris like, whoa. It's me, bro. It's like, whoa.
Speaker:Have fun with it. Um,
Speaker:and but put Dimitri in the plot. Aaron at the Bose, fantastic
Speaker:actress. Her role is not needed here. We don't need to make
Speaker:Craven a mystical thing, just use science, because you already
Speaker:have a Sinister Six in the Sony verse that's mostly science
Speaker:based. So just lean into that. But the point of this all is
Speaker:there seem to have been 100 million plot threads from all
Speaker:the drafts shoved and Frankenstein into one. And what
Speaker:this movie really needed was one idea, one exceptional thing to
Speaker:build around. I like the foreigner enough. You could have
Speaker:used the foreigner in some ways. Maybe his thing is science too.
Speaker:I think his thing is hypnosis. I don't know, but this movie is a
Speaker:mess.
Speaker:And even though I still think
Speaker:I don't, I'm struggling to say, as if this is better or worse
Speaker:than madam Webb. I really don't know, because madam web is over
Speaker:quicker.
Speaker:Yeah, I was thinking, I, like literally, was trying to think
Speaker:about it. I think
Speaker:in terms of plots, Madam Webb had a better plot, in my
Speaker:opinion, but in terms of character development and even
Speaker:character connection, I feel like the characters and creative
Speaker:were more relatable than anything that Madam Webb had put
Speaker:in, because it felt like, for Madame Webb, a lot of it was
Speaker:just like, I'm resenting the action I'm about to engage in
Speaker:right now there, and then it's just like, but I'm just gonna do
Speaker:the action anyway. And it doesn't ever feel like there's a
Speaker:reason for for there's never really a moment where you feel
Speaker:like I was like, Well, what if you what if you just said no,
Speaker:this time around, Craven was just like, hey, I hunt in this
Speaker:way, or I do this particular thing. Okay, this is the step
Speaker:that I need to get to in order to find so and so. So
Speaker:I think I would say, in my opinion,
Speaker:because they are both terrible movies,
Speaker:I was still put Craven ahead of Madame Webb, because I feel like
Speaker:some of the things they were building on are a bit more
Speaker:relatable, like while I understand the concept from man
Speaker:and Webb of like, you have this power you're not sure what's
Speaker:happening, but now you're also responsible for these youth. As
Speaker:a 30 year old man myself right now, like, I understand. I don't
Speaker:want to be responsible for youth that don't know what they're
Speaker:doing. Like, I get that. I just think that because it has so
Speaker:much resentment, and it felt like a lot of the things that
Speaker:were happening in madam Webb were just like, hey, we're, I'm
Speaker:just running off of vibes here. Craven felt like it actually
Speaker:tried to, like, put together some semblance of a cause and
Speaker:effect.
Speaker:That is true. I think
Speaker:there were, I like, for example, I think Dimitri
Speaker:in particular, had a great there was a great hint of an arc here,
Speaker:of like him being this very withdrawn,
Speaker:childish person, to becoming this mature crime boss. And it
Speaker:was acted well enough, he was just let down by the story and
Speaker:the dialog and everything around him.
Speaker:And I think everybody else is pretty fine, even Russell Crowe,
Speaker:who I loved in Pope's exorcist last year, I felt he was more
Speaker:dedicated to Pope's exorcist than this. And that's comes down
Speaker:to the material. Honestly, I don't think anyone in this movie
Speaker:is bad, but I think they're given the constraints of the
Speaker:plot and the dialog, they just wasn't enough for them to work
Speaker:with. It wasn't enough to make anybody look good,
Speaker:whereas madam Webb, I think there were also bad performances
Speaker:on top of a bad script. So in that regard, I do think Craven
Speaker:is a little bit ahead there, but overall, please, Sony, I know
Speaker:you want to have your own universe. I know you want to
Speaker:make something outside of Marvel, but this isn't the way.
Speaker:Just take your time if you're going to do this, if
Speaker:you really want to build your own universe, just take your
Speaker:time. Get somebody like a James Gunn with a creative vision for
Speaker:what this whole universe can be, or just make Amazing Spider Man
Speaker:three with Andrew Garfield and yeah, call it a day, either or
Speaker:I'm fine with but just Please stop. Please stop.
Speaker:That's enough.
Speaker:We don't want any more slices.
Speaker:Oh, man, but we were hinting at it a couple times throughout the
Speaker:this, the this episode, but we gotta get into the comic book
Speaker:stuff, because,
Speaker:you know, Sony had, well, a lot and very little to play around
Speaker:with when it came to Craven, mainly because, you know,
Speaker:growing up, we knew of Craven from the 90s Spider Man
Speaker:television series. Very dislike
Speaker:bearded, long haired man who wears a fur lined vest, and it's
Speaker:just exposed all the time to the elements, and overall, his
Speaker:general character has always been a person who has been a
Speaker:great adversary for Spider Man, especially because his whole
Speaker:thing was like he wanted to engage in the greatest hunt,
Speaker:which is what he.
Speaker:Law of as Spider Man, and is a great play onto the short story
Speaker:of the greatest hunts, where it's just like man hunting man.
Speaker:So now
Speaker:to answer that, let's hop into the Cravens comic book section,
Speaker:or hunting for some reason as to how we got from here in the
Speaker:comics
Speaker:to hear in the movie.
Speaker:So first and foremost, to answer everyone's question, yes, Craven
Speaker:and the chameleon are half siblings.
Speaker:So the two of them are the son of a Grand Duke from Russia. But
Speaker:they do share different they do have different mothers, where
Speaker:Cravens mother is the Duchess in which she was married to, while
Speaker:chameleons mother is the servant that this father had an affair
Speaker:with,
Speaker:and because chameleon
Speaker:was born and just thinking about like our Game of Thrones logic
Speaker:here. So keep that in mind. I'm not going to say the actual word
Speaker:pertaining to it, but like, because chameleon didn't have
Speaker:Dimitri, didn't have this, like, direct lineage, quote, unquote,
Speaker:he was seen as lesser. He was abused because of the fact that
Speaker:he was this child that wasn't connected to the actual family.
Speaker:But so like he was Cravens. Mother didn't like his father
Speaker:didn't like him, so he always thought that his brother Sergei
Speaker:was the one that liked him. Unfortunately, he also
Speaker:experienced some abuse from Sergei as well, but he was
Speaker:always under the impression that the two of them were friends,
Speaker:and this was a story that has been building up since the
Speaker:chameleons first introduction in Amazing Spider Man number one,
Speaker:yes, all the way back,
Speaker:in fact, all the way back to December of 1962 so happy 62nd
Speaker:birthday chameleon.
Speaker:I don't know if you actually look 62 because you changed your
Speaker:face so
Speaker:often, but his half brother, Craven, will be introduced in
Speaker:Spider Man, Amazing Spider Man number 15 in May of 1964 so
Speaker:almost a year and a half later is when we would see the two of
Speaker:them interact. But it wouldn't be until Cravens last hunt, the
Speaker:comic in the 80s has considered Cravens best story in Spider Man
Speaker:lore, it was when we found out that these two of them were
Speaker:actually half siblings.
Speaker:And like I said, they were not a crime family. They were children
Speaker:of a Duke. So with chameleon for him, he actually peaced out on
Speaker:his family once he reached a certain age, because he had like
Speaker:we saw in the movie, this ability to mimic people and
Speaker:being seen as like a great asset. He was taken in by this
Speaker:like covert institution that will teach his people how to
Speaker:become spies or chameleons through the art of disguise. I'm
Speaker:assuming that the master of disguise probably also attended
Speaker:this school, but this chameleon here, Dimitri, would then end up
Speaker:becoming the sole chameleon, because he was so good at this
Speaker:craft of first being able to impersonate people with his
Speaker:voice, but now with the skill set that he was learning from
Speaker:his school make himself look exactly like these people.
Speaker:Meanwhile, Craven and his family, they experienced the
Speaker:fall of the the aristocracy. I believe it was called the
Speaker:oligarch. I'm never really too sure I should have paid more
Speaker:attention in social studies class. But the best way I could
Speaker:describe it, Anastasia, or on the side, yeah, on this, the
Speaker:movie on stage, that whole fall of the Russian aristocracy and
Speaker:all that they experienced that so Craven, along with his
Speaker:family, would end up being refugees here in the United
Speaker:States where he was raised, and decided to lean into this like
Speaker:hunting side of things in order to make some extra income and
Speaker:create a name for himself.
Speaker:So I would definitely say chameleon has a better story arc
Speaker:here,
Speaker:because Craven wouldn't be introduced until much later, and
Speaker:then that's when they started pulling him up. But the entire
Speaker:time, communion has been working as a criminal while Craven was
Speaker:just hired to hunt him, Hunt Spider Man by the chameleon, by
Speaker:his brother,
Speaker:and they would end up working alongside each other in that
Speaker:issue number 15. And this is when Amazing Spider Man would
Speaker:see Craven being introduced as one Spider Man's rogues gallery,
Speaker:while chameleon would end up, once again, continuing to fight
Speaker:against Spider Man, because while building his criminal
Speaker:empire, he saw how big of a threat Spider Man can be,
Speaker:especially when he started to realize that spider man was
Speaker:trying to even at that time, the whole story is him trying to
Speaker:become a member of the Fantastic Four by using his skill set. And
Speaker:because he was trying to discredit Spider Man.
Speaker:Uh, basically, he caused his own problem by trying to so show off
Speaker:that he was Spider Man. The Spider Man proved him to be the
Speaker:the unofficial deal, uh, he decided to just fight back
Speaker:against spider man while he built out his criminal empire as
Speaker:one does. Yes
Speaker:now,
Speaker:so
Speaker:the other thing too is that, like in terms of personalities
Speaker:and whatnot, as I mentioned, chameleon is more of the
Speaker:criminal side of things. So he I would definitely say that the
Speaker:version that we got in the movie is very different from what we
Speaker:got in the in our comics here, because at this point, the very
Speaker:end of the movie is when we will see this beginning stages of
Speaker:this particular chameleon from the comics. So Craven, also,
Speaker:another thing about him. They tried to show it, and when she
Speaker:was like, he didn't want to shoot the lion, but like Craven,
Speaker:is a very noble hunter. He wants to make sure that everything is
Speaker:on equal footing. Because on his in his eyes, you know it's he
Speaker:has to make sure that, like it was him that took it down, not
Speaker:any weapon that was forged by somebody else. So that's why
Speaker:it was very confusing that we didn't get a chance to see this
Speaker:noble Hunter side of Craven, who, yes, while he loves
Speaker:animals, he's still a hunter here in the movie, is treated as
Speaker:if he's more of a like Dog the Bounty Hunter, because he's only
Speaker:chasing after people. We never actually see him chase after
Speaker:really, any animals.
Speaker:So Craven, unfortunately, this is not the best, nor is it the
Speaker:most accurate description of Craven compared to his comic
Speaker:book counterpart, especially from what we seen, not only in
Speaker:the comics, but in TV shows like that 90s Spider Man all the way
Speaker:to even like spectacular Spider Man, or Marvel's Spider Man,
Speaker:ultimate, or even, I think there's so many versions of
Speaker:Craven, some of which have even intertwined with Miles Warren
Speaker:that
Speaker:aren't being showcased here. So it is very that's why I was
Speaker:mostly upset that it's just like, we're not really seeing a
Speaker:hunter here. We're seeing a tracker. We're seeing
Speaker:more, yes, it's like a hunter, but more of a bouncy Hunter. So
Speaker:because we're not tapping into that, it just feels like this
Speaker:version of Craven is just somebody that likes to just kill
Speaker:people and call it I'm hunting for sport, where it's not true
Speaker:hunting.
Speaker:So those, that's those two now not for everybody's favorite
Speaker:character, the foreigner.
Speaker:So yes, he is in the comics. He first appeared in Amazing Spider
Speaker:Man number 115 back in May of 1986
Speaker:the power set which they tried to show in the movie, which a
Speaker:lot of people are confused about, but definitely seems to
Speaker:be accurate, is that if he maintains eye contact with you,
Speaker:he can slow down time in your perception for about 10 seconds.
Speaker:So in 10 seconds, he can do whatever it is that he wants to
Speaker:do. So many people are confused of if it is super speed or if it
Speaker:is that you are being blocked out during this time, so you're
Speaker:not really knowing what's going on. So in 10 seconds, he's able
Speaker:to just manipulate things. So I'm just chalking this up to
Speaker:some other descriptions about him. Is that he has the peak
Speaker:human conditioning, which is basically just co phrasing of
Speaker:just like, he's just a good fighter. He's not like Captain
Speaker:America or Black Panther, or any other like fast individual. He's
Speaker:not super strong or anything like that. He just causes you to
Speaker:black out for 10 seconds upon maintaining eye contact with
Speaker:you, and he's able to manipulate things during that time. So if
Speaker:you ever want to fight him,
Speaker:either wear shades or close your eyes. So he has the same powers
Speaker:as the original four. Loko, yes,
Speaker:gotcha understand the foreigner. Now, some other tidbits about
Speaker:him is that he has a love interest history that is quite
Speaker:shocking. He is the ex husband of Silver Sable
Speaker:sure
Speaker:she gets around the world so she'll run into the foreigner.
Speaker:And he has also dated the Black Cat
Speaker:cap.
Speaker:But yeah, when he inspired man fought, it was he was also hired
Speaker:by the chameleon in the later issue. So this is how we get the
Speaker:foreigner got into play. He's just again, one of those
Speaker:characters that unfortunately, just gets lost to time. So I'm
Speaker:very shocked that they were, they dug him out from
Speaker:everything. But it does make sense now why he was involved in
Speaker:it, given the fact that he i.
Speaker:Has this connection to the chameleon. And it does seem like
Speaker:this is just basically this particular side of the world of
Speaker:things and Rhino being involved in everything. I'm not going to
Speaker:go into the rhino because I feel like there have been many
Speaker:iterations of the rhino that, like people understand who he
Speaker:is, but I will say that the the main difference is that like he
Speaker:compared to what we seen in this movie, where he actually turns
Speaker:into the Rhino from due to some connection of miles Warren, that
Speaker:is a much later version of the rhino in the past. It was more
Speaker:so a man in a very sturdy, bulletproof suit that was put
Speaker:together because J Jonah Jameson wanted to create characters and
Speaker:individuals that could fight against Spider Man, and
Speaker:unfortunately, Jay Jones and Jameson paid for the destruction
Speaker:of New York City, even though Spider Man is supposed to be the
Speaker:menace,
Speaker:sure.
Speaker:So, yeah, that is everything in terms of our comic book section,
Speaker:um, you know, like I said, there's a lot to play around
Speaker:with, but because of the fact that is so intertwined with
Speaker:Spider Man, I'm just assuming that Sony just felt like they
Speaker:didn't know what to do. But you could have easily changed a lot
Speaker:of these things, given the fact that, like, you had a strong
Speaker:presence there with the brother, the the relation, the sibling
Speaker:relationship between Craven and chameleon, that you could have
Speaker:played off with, especially with like, there's so many building
Speaker:blocks of like that you saw in the movie of like chameleon not
Speaker:being respected, respected by his family, by his dad, more
Speaker:importantly, that we could have built off, off of you could have
Speaker:played around with like, yes, like, you're trying to make
Speaker:Craven seem like the good guy, but you're also kind of showing
Speaker:that like he was a sibling that didn't care about his brother's
Speaker:abuse from his father if it was actually happening or not,
Speaker:because he was just like, it's my own thing that I want to do
Speaker:now. So I'm gonna peace out and foreigner. There isn't much you
Speaker:could have done about that. I understand that. But given the
Speaker:fact that you built out Rhino to be more of this individual who
Speaker:kind of created more of a crime syndicate kind of thing, that
Speaker:was more a foreigner's background for my understanding,
Speaker:giving his connections to Silver Sable and black cat, so given
Speaker:the fact that he was running in those circles, it would have
Speaker:made way more sense to transfer him from being just a hit man to
Speaker:someone that was maybe an assassin, but also sent doing
Speaker:like jobs for hire, while also manipulating like black arms
Speaker:deals and all that.
Speaker:Yeah, I think the moral over here is you can have a lot of
Speaker:cool elements in your movie and your story at all, but if you're
Speaker:not going to bother to use them logically or to their maximum
Speaker:potential, then just leave them out and just make the movie
Speaker:simpler So we can leave quicker.
Speaker:Yeah, because just all of that would have been any one of those
Speaker:elements used to their maximum potential would have been so
Speaker:cool. I feel like no element in this movie was you can see its
Speaker:maximum potential. So, yeah. Also another thing, don't use
Speaker:the spiders trying to show us that, like it's a Spider Man
Speaker:reference. I think that's the other thing that always bogs
Speaker:Sony down. It was just like, we have to show you that it's a
Speaker:Spider Man movie, even though Spider Man can't be in it,
Speaker:because, like that whole scene with Craven, they show like
Speaker:Cravens fear is like spiders. How could a man who fights off
Speaker:against lions, tigers and bears be afraid of spiders
Speaker:like, I feel like what they should have played around with
Speaker:more was just like, there's like, a hidden fear of like,
Speaker:does he have something similar to the psychosis that his mother
Speaker:was experiencing? Like him showing him in a like, in a in a
Speaker:straight jacket, you know, not him not being free to run around
Speaker:the the Safari and all that, or even have it be that like his
Speaker:father is constantly like yelling at him to be a hunter,
Speaker:telling him that you're nothing about the killer. This is what
Speaker:you're supposed to be. This is how you're supposed to be. Even
Speaker:show like a version of him where he follows his father's dreams.
Speaker:And that, I feel would have been more of a distracting thing than
Speaker:spiders running down the tree, given the fact that the man
Speaker:climbs freeze like He's Tarzan
Speaker:anything, just anything.
Speaker:All right, well, we
Speaker:don't want to keep you here much longer, but I did have one
Speaker:question, a wild question, in my mind, that could I just needed
Speaker:to ask,
Speaker:do you think the chameleon gets canceled if he pretends to be a
Speaker:black person?
Speaker:I mean, he should be canceled for all kinds of reasons,
Speaker:if he uses the hard Aria, okay,
Speaker:not
Speaker:hunt.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:yes, but it is, in short, yes, because I just don't see how
Speaker:that could go well in any in any way.
Speaker:And final question, because this was a holiday movie, or rather,
Speaker:a movie dropped during the holiday season,
Speaker:is this a Christmas movie for you only if you hate whoever
Speaker:you're giving this to
Speaker:gonna agree with you. There to anti Christmas movies.
Speaker:This is like next, instead of getting, like a lump of coal,
Speaker:you actually just get this and you're stocking I you.
Speaker:Alright. Well, with that, that wraps up our episode today, our
Speaker:Christmas Special. Thank you so much for joining us. If you
Speaker:haven't already, be sure to support us, either through a one
Speaker:time gift on buy me a coffee, or monthly through Patreon. You can
Speaker:also check us out on our socials for updates on episodes and
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Speaker:YouTube and many other platforms. If you ever want to
Speaker:reach out to us, our DMS are open, so hunt right in or you
Speaker:can also email us at capercappod@gmail.com,
Speaker:take care of yourselves. Happy Holidays to you and yours, and
Speaker:remember that if you're going to send your kids to summer camp,
Speaker:make sure that they are one more present and future presentations
Speaker:of any kind of activity in life, but also maybe check to see what
Speaker:kind of activities are happening at that summer camp, because it
Speaker:may morally corrupt their understanding of what does it
Speaker:mean to be a part of martyr.
Speaker:And if a strange Doctor offers to experiment on you, and he's
Speaker:not Morbius, he's Warren, take him up on his offer, it seemed
Speaker:to work out well for everyone. So give it a shot. Who knows?
Speaker:Who knows what could happen. Try it.
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