Crowe plays a Russian gangster in Kraven the Hunter, which alternates between entertainingly awful and just terrible.
I’ve pondered this before, but the riddle remains: in an age of increasing sensitivity to the perils of cross-ethnic casting, why are all restrictions lifted when it comes to playing Russians? The latest star to take advantage of this freedom is Russell Crowe as gang boss Nikolai Kravinoff, a gruff, heavily accented bear of a man, pouring out the vodka and lamenting America has made his sons soft.
Long-term Marvel comic fans will know Kraven started out as a Spider-Man villain, like Venom and Morbius. But Sony, which owns the rights, has followed its usual procedure by turning him into a good guy and giving him a screen vehicle of his own – nowadays a standard way of capitalising on an asset, like building hotels in Monopoly.
The refashioned Kraven backstory is a convoluted one, starting in Ghana, where he’s mauled almost to death by a lion, then revived by a magical potion. Twenty years on, he’s morphed into a superpowered cross between Tarzan and Rambo, battling poachers in the wilderness when not hunting down villains further afield.
Through it all, the strongest emotion I felt was concern for the career of director J.C. Chandor, who has some notable achievements to his name, including the 2013 sea story, with a tour-de-force performance by Robert Redford as a man battling to survive alone in a leaky boat.is released in cinemas on December 12.
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