Kraven's Rhino Still Fails The Comics Just As Badly As TASM2

The Rhino is one of Spider-Man's most famous and long-standing villains, but he's also one of the least important ones. Usually employed as a bruiser or henchman in larger story arcs, Russian mobster Aleksei Sytsevich is hardly ever the mastermind of his own plan. Where the Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Venom, Mysterio, and so many other Spidey antagonists all get their moments in the sun, Rhino is played for comic relief more often than not — a literal bullheaded goon whose criminal goals are limited to smashing through buildings and petty theft.

However, that hasn't stopped Sony Pictures from bringing Rhino back to the big screen in the upcoming "Kraven the Hunter" movie. Starring Marvel Cinematic Universe alum Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the R-rated film looks to put a gritty, bloody, live-action spin on the titular Marvel baddie, and Alessandro Nivola will feature as the latest incarnation of the Rhino.

If you're a Spider-Man fan, you may have some latent frustration over the character's last live-action appearance in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." Though played by a true Hollywood talent in Paul Giamatti, that version of the character is a far cry from his comic book form. From the overly designed mechanical suit to the embarrassingly slim amount of screen time, the "Amazing" Rhino was far from a homerun. Unfortunately, the first "Kraven the Hunter" trailer suggests that the new Rhino may be just as disappointing, at least for comic book fans — but in a completely different way.

In an era when Rocket Raccoon and the Scarlet Witch have become household names, no comic book storyline or character feels off-limits to Hollywood. And yet, the Rhino is still a tricky one. 

First introduced in the 1960s, he's the kind of goofy, simple supervillain that ruled comic book pages at the time. And because Aleksei Sytsevich never really got upgraded to a more important narrative role, he's remained in that space ever since.

These days, there seem to be two core schools of thought for how you adapt comic books for the big screen. You either embrace the inherent silliness and wink at it constantly, like what James Gunn does in the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies, or you take the Zack Snyder approach and take everything very, very seriously. In the latter strategy — which "Kraven the Hunter" seems to be embracing with its R rating — a villain like Rhino doesn't really work. He's too Silver Age. It's hard to make him all that serious without fundamentally changing what the character is.

To its credit, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" doesn't make Rhino any more than what he's supposed to be. He pops up at the very end to show that Peter Parker is still dedicated to battling evil, and he's relatively true to his comic book self — a bank-robbing lackey without much of a plan. The real problem there is that the suit and character concept are all wrong — issues that "Kraven" also looks to be struggling with. However, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Okay, so Rhino is too goofy for self-serious writing and too unimportant to be a big-deal villain in a more self-aware superhero flick. "Kraven the Hunter" appears to be trying to fix that problem by making him, once again, very different from how he is in the comics.

Rhino only pops up at the very end of the "Kraven the Hunter" trailer, but the brief glimpse we get is enough to make comics die-hards think twice. "There is an animal in each one of us," Alessandro Nivola's character says with an evil smile, presumably talking to Kraven himself. "Don't you want to know why they call me the Rhino?" 

As the words are spoken, we see the villain unplug some sort of tube attached to his waist. The camera then zooms in on his forearm, which rapidly transforms and adopts the rough gray skin of a rhinoceros.

Clearly, there's some genetic modification going on here. That's always been part of the character's origin story, and a few tweaks aren't a big deal. The bigger concern is that Rhino comes off as far more conniving and shrewder than he is in the comics. The vibes are much more in line with Curt Conners (aka the Lizard) than with the brutish persona of Rhino. It's also worth noting that Rhino wears a suit in the comics that, while not the source of his strength, does give him the animal look and enhance his already superhuman abilities. In "Kraven," the suit is no longer part of the picture.

You can't just slot any established character into any role and expect it to work. Rhino has (basically) never been a conniving, evil mastermind, so portraying him as such in "Kraven" could be a big misstep. He isn't such a precious character that changing him is unthinkable, but there are simply better villains for that role who could have been used instead.

The most interesting Rhino arcs in the comics deal directly with his status as a villain of the week. The 2001 story "Flowers for Rhino," for instance, sees the big guy modify his brain to become a genius criminal after getting sick of being treated like a dumb henchman. He achieves incredible things after undergoing the transformation, but his underworld success doesn't make him happy. In the end, he learns to embrace his true self and returns to being the Rhino we know and love.

Sony doesn't need to do that story, but it's a good example of how you can make a character more important without abandoning the traits that make them unique in the first place. If the MCU has succeeded at one thing, it's meeting zany comic book characters right where they are and building around them. Sony hasn't quite figured that lesson out yet, which might be why "Morbius" feels more like an early 2000s adaptation than a modern comic book blockbuster.

A trailer is just a trailer, so things could turn out a lot different from how they look right now, but it seems that "Kraven the Hunter" is once again falling short with its version of Rhino.