Only the robust presence of Russell Crowe – and what might conceivably be a sly visual joke about exiled Russian plutocrat Mikhail Khodorkovsky – make this generic slice of superhero action worth watching.

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As Kraven, Taylor-Johnson gives us an Americanised English accent – puzzling, as his dad and brother have the ryegulation Ryussian accyent – and he is developing a not unattractive faintly Roger Moore facial expression of wry dismissal (it could get him the 007 gig) but there is nothing particularly funny or smart in the script for him to get his teeth into.

Fred Hechinger has the marginally more interesting role but Crowe upstages them both. JC Chandor, whose credits include directing the fascinating near-silent jeopardy drama with Robert Redford All Is Lost, in 2013, does a serviceable job, but the delirious craziness that once made the superhero genre so watchable is not really in evidence. Kraven is a so-so character in a so-so film and the superhero revival is as far away as ever.

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