What Stephenie always had in mind

Will the new Twilight director choice sound Hollywood's gaydar?

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are to star again in the next Twilightsaga, "Breaking Dawn."
Bill Condon brings some Oscar resume to Twilight.

Are the Twilight movies — based on books that don't exactly qualify as sophisticated literature — trying to go upscale, art house?

Summit Entertainment's announcement that Dreamgirls director Bill Condon will direct the fourth and final installment of the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn makes one wonder. Condon won an Academy Award for the screenplay of Gods and Monsters, a fictionalized biopic of homosexual filmmaker James Whale, which he also directed.

He also penned the screenplay for the musical hit Chicago and wrote and directed 2004's Kinsey about the iconic sex studies professor.

In an official announcement, Condon stated, "I'm very excited to get the chance to bring the climax of the saga to life onscreen. As fans of the series know, this is a one-of-a-kind book — and we're hoping to create an equally unique cinematic experience."

"I'm so thrilled that Bill wants to work with us," author Stephenie Meyer added. "I think he's going to be a great fit, and I'm excited to see what he does with the material."

A Gay Take?

With its heartthrob star Robert Pattinson, the Twilight flicks have always appealed to a set of distinct audiences — but Condon's resumé has Hollywood's gaydar going off at a fever pitch. So we were intrigued by Condon's "interview" in reelloop, an entertainment blog known for satire.

"There's always been a pretty gay element to the Twilight movies," Condon is quoted as saying. "It's hard to see all those fetishistic shows of the ripped, shirtless boys in New Moon and argue with that. I'm hoping to take it to the next level. The next level of gayness.

"I want to retain the basic elements that Stephenie Meyer included in Breaking Dawn. But I want to add many more gay elements. I haven't decided yet what those will be. Maybe everyone will have goatees."

The blog also quotes a "representative" from Summit as stating, "We know the Twilight movies are a huge hit with female audiences. We're hoping that by gaying up Breaking Dawn, we can break into a section of the male audience, too. Bill Condon is just the director to do that, and we're thrilled at the prospect of working with him."

(Relax, Edward Cullen devotees. It's a joke - although Pattinson has declared in the past that he detests vaginas.)

Revolving directors

Summit has kept fans interested by enlisting a different director for each Twilight installment. British music video mastermind David Slade is currently finishing the third movie, Eclipse, to be released in July.

The announcement puts to rest several months of speculation surrounding the position, with rumors directed at Gus Van Sant and Sofia Coppola. Questions remain about whether Breaking Dawn will be split into two movies, as is being done in the final installment of the Harry Potter series — a transparent ploy to draw as much cash as possible from the target teen audience.

We can assume that Condon will not be adding a gaygenda to the flick. Despite his respected pedigree, his characters make for strange bedfellows. Sure, he can make Beyoncé move, but can he handle moodier-than-thou Kristen Stewart?

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Movie Review

Action-packed Kraven the Hunter showcases gritty Marvel antihero

Photo by Jay Maidment

Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kraven the Hunter.

One of the oddest things about the blockbuster era we live in is that while Disney owns the rights to the majority of Marvel comic book characters, Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-Man and any affiliated characters. Since they’re sharing Spider-Man himself with Disney, Sony has been trying to capitalize on those rights by making stand-alone films using niche characters that only comic book fanatics would know.

Having exhausted Venom and whiffed on attempts with Morbius and Madame Web, they’re trying again with Kraven the Hunter. Also known as Sergei Kravinoff, Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a self-styled vigilante who, as the film tells it, travels the world exacting vengeance on the truly bad people of the world. He’s the son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a hard-edged Russian oligarch, and brother to Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), who is relatively weak compared to the rest of his family.

The origin story has Kraven gaining his animal-like powers - including super-strength, speed, and jumping abilities - as a teenager from a mysterious serum given to him by a girl named Calypso (played as an adult by Ariana DeBose) after he was mauled by a lion. The two maintain a tenuous partnership as adults, with Calypso helping him hunt down other villains like Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) and The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott).

Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, the film looks and feels enormously lazy, something made merely to hold on to potentially valuable intellectual property. Other than the tense family dynamic between the Kravinovs, little makes sense in the story. Kraven has an indecipherable moral code that has him going after poachers - because he’s part lion? - in addition to other high-powered criminals, with no clear goal except to … get back at his father?

The laziness extends to the action scenes, which feature Kraven being mostly impervious to any damage, whether it’s hand-to-hand combat, knives, or guns. The CGI-heavy scenes don’t even allow moviegoers to enjoy an R-rated bloody free-for-all, as all of the blood splatter is computer-generated, too. Since apparently one Spider-Man villain is not enough, three others make appearances with abilities that are under-explained and CGI that is poorly done.

That’s not even counting Calypso, another Spider-Man villain whose purpose in this film is nebulous at best. Her early connection with Kraven is so coincidental as to be laughable, and her continued reasons for helping him as an adult strain credulity as well. The only saving grace of her presence is that the filmmakers don’t try to shoehorn romance into the plot; perhaps they’re saving that for the (inevitable?) sequel.

Taylor-Johnson has had one of the most prolific-yet-anonymous careers in modern Hollywood, with appearances in big films like The Fall Guy, Bullet Train, and Tenet that have made very little impact. Even as the star here, he fails to hold your attention, with the story and visuals doing him no favors. DeBose has followed up her Oscar win for West Side Story with schlock like I.S.S., Argylle, and this, which doesn’t bode well for her career. At least Crowe gets to chew the scenery.

With a contractual inability to mention the name “Spider-Man,” movies like Kraven the Hunter exist in a weird area that forces filmmakers to make up stories for characters to which most people have no attachment. And just like Sony’s previous efforts, it is a very poor way to spend two hours in a movie theater; avoid at all costs.

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Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.

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