Kraven The Hunter’s Strange Digital Mouth Scene Explained

This article contains minor spoilers for “Kraven the Hunter”.

ADR, an acronym for Automated Dialogue Replacement, has existed in the film industry in one form or another since the advent of synchronous sound in cinema, when it was originally known as a “loop.” Heck, not just small pieces of an actor’s performance, but entire vocal performances have been dubbed in post-production, for reasons ranging from an actor’s natural voice being considered poor to problems recording dialogue during filming. Whether it’s censorship, clarity, a fight, or a necessity due to the film’s editing process, most movie viewers are accustomed to moments when an actor’s lip movements don’t match the words they’re supposed to say. they are saying.

At least the audiences used be fine with that, until the digital revolution made it possible to hide those little visual hiccups even more. Unlike, say, removing hidden wires and cables and all that, CG replacement of an actor’s mouth isn’t as simple or as seamless. A production will likely need to replace an actor’s entire face and/or head to make the solution unnoticeable. Simply replacing an actor’s mouth causes problems with Uncanny Valley, which only draws more attention to the problem.

Unfortunately, it seems like the production team behind Columbia Pictures’ Marvel movies would rather take a trip through the Uncanny Valley than fix their movies’ mistakes the old-fashioned way. This month’s “Kraven the Hunter” features a moment that makes at least one main character seem incredibly strange.

“Kraven the Hunter” has an exposition problem, to put it mildly. This is likely due to a lot of meddling between the filming of the film and its editing. One of the film’s biggest casualties is the character of Calypso (Ariana DeBose), whose origin story and identity is markedly different in the film than in the Marvel comics. “Kraven” has one of the most painfully uncomfortable first acts in recent memory, perhaps due to this massive change in Calypso’s character, where a young version of the woman is told in detail about her family’s inheritance from a magic potion that will cure anyone who drinks it in strange ways.

Young Calypso impulsively decides to give the potion to a young Kraven after he is mauled to death by a lion, reviving him and giving him some sort of animal superpowers. Curiously, Calypso doesn’t stick around to see if her gift of the potion worked. The two lose sight of each other until adulthood, when an adult Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) locates Calypso, now working as a high-profile lawyer in London.

During a key scene in which Kraven takes Calypso to his lair within his late mother’s estate, the two characters have a very strange conversation about the potion, which seems to go in vague circles. There’s a clear sense that this version of the scene was not the one originally written or filmed, and some of DeBose’s angles appear to be composed through a blue or green screen. What’s more, the lower half of DeBose’s face appears to have been replaced for much of the scene, indicating that his original dialogue has been radically changed. This, of course, leaves his performance a mess, with his eye movements and expressions all over the place. The net effect of this obvious digital manipulation is similar to that of the late ’50s animated series “Clutch Cargo,” which became famous (and unpleasant) by superimposing images of human mouths over drawings of animated characters as a cost-saving measure. . . The 21st century version of this, as seen in “Kraven the Hunter”, is no improvement.

Interestingly, this is the second comic book movie Sony has released this calendar year that features such egregious manipulation of the film’s dialogue. Famously, “Madame Web” did a number on Tahar Rahim’s performance as Ezekiel Sims in that film.making his entire character feel like a member of Uncanny Valley. We now know through several interviews that this is in part because the filmmakers moved away from the main plot points as they were originally written and filmed, to allow the film to align with the continuity of the Sony/joint film. Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man” movies. It’s possible that similar cinematic universe canon reasons were behind the changes in “Kraven,” or it could simply be that too many cooks in the kitchen spoiled the broth.

I think the real culprit is Hollywood’s increasing reliance on cobbling together movies from disparate pieces. Sure, setting up scenes between two or more actors who have never been in the same place at the same time is not a new trick, but it should be used sparingly. Nowadays, some films are making the technique part of their entire plan, similar to Marvel Studios films organizing a period of reshoots long before a frame of footage has been shot. All of this leads to the mess that can be seen in “Kraven the Hunter,” where the various revisions and changes stand out even if we don’t know what was there originally. It’s akin to reading an essay full of hastily scribbled blank scraps. Technically it is a complete work, but something is lost by covering it up instead of throwing it away and starting from scratch.

Hopefully, the ridiculous ADR incompetence in “Madame Web” and “Kraven the Hunter” will dissuade studios and filmmakers from taking this approach. Sure, they probably made these decisions out of some misguided desire to appease as many fans as possible and give them what they think they want, but all they’ve done is create a bigger mess. If you’re going to fail, it’s better to do it with your head held high than with someone’s (or something’s) mouth glued to yours.