FLICKS AL FRESCO

14 best Houston-area spots showcasing summer movies under the stars

Catch the family-friendly Lilo & Stitch at Levy Park on June 28.

It's the summer, which means it's time again for various parks, urban spaces, malls, and other open areas to pull out the giant screen, fire up the digital-cinema projector and play some after-dark, outdoor movies for families.

For fans who want to skip the jam-packed indoor movie multiplexes, here are 14 places that are hosting free, open-air picture shows this season.

Axelrad
In honor of Pride Month, this Richmond spot has been having LGBTQ-themed screenings every Monday this month. The next one will be Rent (June 17) and Pride (June 24). 8:30 pm.

Baybrook Mall
The shopping center will have bi-weekly screenings out on the lawn: The Lego Movie (June 18), Incredibles 2 (July 16), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (August 6), and Zootopia (August 20).

Discovery Green
The Green will give us only one Screen on the Green movie this summer season, and it's Mean Girls (June 29). So, whether you were a friendly high schooler or — gasp! — a Plastic, take a trip down memory lane and check this out. 9pm.

Dow Park
The park at Deer Park will host outdoor screenings of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (July 16) and Flubber (August 12). In case of rain, the screenings will move over to Earl Dunn Gym, and the Citizens Police Academy will be selling concessions. Begins at dusk.

Heritage Place
Over in Conroe, this park has an all-age screenings lined up: The Boss Baby (June 14). If you prefer to lounge in a pool while watching a flick, Conroe Aquatic Center will screen Toy Story (June 14) and the Oscar Johnson, Jr. Community Center Pool will host The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (July 12). 8:15 pm.

Historic Tomball Depot
Every second Saturday this summer, the city of Tomball will have a night of games, crafts, and a movie under the stars. Next month, there will be a Christmas-in-July screening of The Grinch (July 13), followed after that by Incredibles 2 (August 10). 6 pm.

Levy Park Conservancy
The urban space, located in the Upper Kirby District, will have Family Movie Night on the last night of every month this season. First up, there is Lilo & Stitch (June 28), followed by Trolls (July 26) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (August 30). 8 pm.

Market Square Park
This park's summer movie series was supposed to kick off on the 5th with Little Shop of Horrors, but that was cancelled due to rain. Thankfully, it has moved over to June 19. As for later in the season, they got screenings of Spaceballs (July 3) and the not-so-family-friendly Forgetting Sarah Marshall (August 7). 8:30 pm.

Midtown Park
This park will have monthly, first Saturday screenings up until the end of the year. This summer, there will be screenings of Dirty Dancing (July 6), everybody's favorite Patrick Swayze movie (next to Road House, of course), and Central Intelligence (August 6). 7 pm.

Miller Outdoor Theatre
The legendary outdoor theatre will be dropping a few outdoor screenings this summer. This month, there will be a screening of Crazy Rich Asians (June 14). There's nothing in July, but the following month will give us Black Panther (August 20) and Top Gun (August 21). 8 pm.

Saengerfest Park
The Galveston park will have Movie Nite on the Strand on the first Friday of the summer months, with Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (July 6) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (August 3). There will also be a special, Apollo 11-anniversary screening of First Man (July 20). 8 pm.

The Square at Memorial City
At the moment, this spot appears to only have one Friday Family Movie Night planned this summer: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (June 14). You can bring your blankets and lawn chairs, or grab a patio seat at Maggiano's Little Italy or The Cheesecake Factory for a dinner-or-a-movie experience. 7 pm.

Sugar Land Town Square
This location's Movies Under the Moon is another series that will go on right up to December. As for what they have for the summer, there will be second-Saturday screenings of Smallfoot (June 15), The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (July 13), and Christopher Robin (August 10). 8:30 pm.

VFW Park
The City of Katy launches its Katy Summer Nights movie series with a screening of The Emperor's New Groove (June 15) and plenty of yummy popcorn. Other as-yet-determined movies will unspool on July 12 and August 8. 8 pm.

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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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