Macaulay Culkin and Michael Jackson at Neverland Ranch
Macaulay Culkin and Mila Kunis
Generation Y is slipping out of its roaring twenties and into its third decade, as evidenced by Macaulay Culkin's 30th birthday today. The Home Alone heir was once regarded as the most successful child actor since Shirley Temple as well as one of Michael Jackson's best friends — he's the godfather to the performer's son Prince Michael and daughter Paris.
Culkin was the first child actor to ever get paid $1 million for one film — 1991's My Girl — and while that may have been the most lucrative moment in his career, he's snagged That 70s Show hottie Mila Kunis for what looks like the long run. The party monster kicked off the bday bash earlier this weekend in London with younger brother Kieran.
Culkin's not the only Aug. 26 birthday who's Lost in New York. Were she still alive, today would be the 100th birthday of Mother Teresa. In commemoration of the Nobel Peace Prize winner's big day, Catholic League president Bill Donohue urged the management of the Empire State Building to light the building in white and blue.
When the building management declined, assuming that most New Yorkers would see a blue and white edifice as being symbolic of the New York Giants or Yankees, Donohue accused the building management as acting like "bigots."
Donohue proceeded to call upon Catholics nationwide to sign petitions to get Madame T up in lights. Mother Teresa — the Musical has yet to premiere on Broadway, but if Donohue gets his way, we hope to see a dazzling Macaulay and Mila on the red carpet at the premiere.
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.
Macaulay Caulkin turns 30 today
...as Mother Teresa turns 100.
Macaulay Culkin and Michael Jackson at Neverland Ranch
Macaulay Culkin and Mila Kunis