The annual Dickens on the Strand event is another casualty of 2020.
Photo courtesy of Galveston Island Convention & Visitors Bureau
Another beloved local holiday tradition is a victim of 2020. Galveston’s Dickens on The Strand events have been canceled this year, according to a statement from the Galveston Historical Foundation. The Dickens on The Squares events were scheduled for December 4 and 5.
The cherished holiday event has celebrated all things Dickens and Victorian for more than 46 years in downtown Galveston, showcasing ornate costumes, lively music, and period architecture. However, the foundation’s board of directors voted to cancel the 2020 event, citing the increase in local, regional, and state numbers relating to COVID-19, per a press release.
Looking forward, the festival is expected to return to its normal layout and schedule December 3-5, 2021. Ticket holders will be contacted with refund information.
“The decision of the board and staff simply skips a year in our long history of producing this world-renowned festival,” said Dwayne Jones, Galveston Historical Foundation’s executive director, in a statement. “Each December, Dickens celebrates our Victorian heritage on the island and salutes one the great Christmas stories of the English language. We promise to be back next year with a fresh perspective on our holiday tradition and a healthy event for all.”
This comes after two major holiday events in Galveston were canceled due to the pandemic this week. The Knights of Momus Grand Night Parade, Coronation and Ball nixed their event for 2021. Following suit, Tilman Fertitta called off his over-the-top Salute to San Luis soiree due to coronavirus concerns.
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.
---
Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.
