Fort Kent Cinema Blog

Rick's Reviews

A WORLD OF HURT

For dedicated Marvel fans, “Thunderbolts” fits neatly into the Marvel Studios timeline. As a continuation, or sequel, it makes perfect sense. However, as a casual fan of the MCU, it took me about 20 minutes to realize that the plot of this latest Marvel entry owes a great deal to the standalone 2021 “Black Widow” movie starring Scarlett Johansson.Returning to the big screen from that movie are Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexi Shostakov/Red Guardian and Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster.Also on hand is Marvel mainstay Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, the former Winter Soldier, who has since been elected a U.S. Congressman.And in a major casting coup, Julia Louis-Dreyfus shows up as an integral character (Finally! An explanation for those random cameos.) With a streak of white hair, she looks like a Cruella De Ville wannabe, but with even more sinister motives.Her Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, as CIA Director, dispatches Yelena to an underground facility where the girl finds herself at odds with what appears to be a motley group of assassins. Eventually, though, the group realizes they’re caught in a web of deceit hatched by the evil Allegra and decide there’s safety in numbers.And then they meet Bob (Lewis Pullman). Just Bob. Bob is dressed in hospital scrubs and doesn’t appear to know how he got himself in such a pickle. He seems sweetly dim, almost to the point of comic relief. Understandable, since this movie is the creation of the crew behind the Emmy-winning TV comedy “Beef.”And then just like that, the huge gates that define the gargantuan space slam shut and the group realizes Yelena’s assignment is a trap and the room is actually an incinerator. Fortunately, one of the four is capable of disappearing through walls and manages to open a gate just as a digital clock on the wall ticks down to zero. Ya gotta love Hollywood.So now the chase is on. The merry band of misfits outwits a small army outside and makes their getaway. But not before the mysterious Bob somehow goes airborne and then slams back to earth and destroys the heroes’ escape route.Allegra’s goons capture him and take him to a secret lab in New York City where she can keep an eye on him and learn more about his growing superpowers, including levitation and why he packs a mean left hook.Marvel Studios is now under new management and it’s clear this scrappy addition is meant to announce where the MCU is headed. You might be surprised.

Author: Rick Douglas

Rick's Reviews

HULKAMANIA

Right at the outset, I’ll be honest. Chris Evans will always be Captain America. Nothing against Anthony Mackie, an outstanding actor in his own right and a worthy successor to Evans.But I think the folks at Marvel should have retired the character. After all, Mackie was an established MCU presence before Evans passed him the crown—er, shield—in “Avengers: Endgame.”But corporate synergy is the DNA of the Marvel Universe and I am sure there were some heated discussions in the boardroom over what to do with Captain America after Evans left the series.So now we have Mackie’s Sam Wilson as Captain America in a role that also gives him wings. So right away he has one-upped his fellow castmate in a role that allows him to defy gravity (sorry, Wicked).The film is, in a sense, a sequel to the Disney+ TV series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” in which the transfer of the name Captain America became official. Unfortunately, Mackie’s Cap is often overshadowed in a narrative centered around President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, played by cinematic icon Harrison Ford. Ross faces a geopolitical event that inevitably reveals his dark, angry side.And whoa, his rage unleashes his inner Hulk, or more accurately The Red Hulk. (This really can’t be a spoiler because all the teasers and TV ads focus on this mad transformation.)The folks at Marvel hope the new iteration of a Hulk character will prove to be box office gold, because this new chapter of the Marvel Multiverse, comprised of several movies, so far hasn’t lived up to expectations. We’re now 35 MCU movie projects in and this movie breaks little new ground in terms of story. But Mackie saves the day with a street-level fighting spirit that Chris Evans could only dream of. His smackdowns work because he also has the advantage of aerial combat.“Brave New World” is the first of three new Marvel films that will debut in 2025.Let’s hope the studio can create some unique magic before fans finally grow tired of re-treads.

Author: Rick Douglas

Rick's Reviews

The Wizard of Ick

Some moviegoers might be surprised to learn that this remake of a horror classic (F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu) is a rip-off of “Dracula.”In fact, the widow of Dracula author Bram Stoker was so incensed by Murnau’s seeming appropriation of her husband’s seminal work that she tried to have destroyed all copies of the 1922 film.But happily for us, she failed in her mission and the original film was around long enough to have had a profound impact on a young Robert Eggers, who vowed he would someday direct his own treatment.Eggers is no stranger to the horror genre, having already given us “The Witch,” as well as “The Lighthouse.”So now he’s achieved his dream of masterminding a vicious, if languid, take on a gothic tale of bloodlust.The story starts with a young Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) trying to conjure an evil spirit because, in the Victorian age, there’s little else to do for a girl with a vivid imagination. She succeeds at her task in summoning “the Nosferatu,” an otherworldly vampire. Unfortunately for her and those around her, she comes to regret the indiscretion of a lonely heart.Eventually she marries the dashing Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), who is a real estate agent in Wisburg, Germany. Their life together as newlyweds is an idyll, full of promise but few surprises.That is, until Thomas’s boss sends him to Transylvania to complete the sale of a tumbledown castle to the reclusive Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard). Ellen begs her new husband not to go because she’s been having unsettling dreams of death, but he tells her the deal will set them up nicely. In more ways than one, Thomas finds himself lost in the shadows of his new assignment. Orlok is a strange creature who doesn’t seem to like doing business in daylight. And the longer Thomas is in the company of his new client, the more ill he becomes. It might have something to do with waking up in Orlok’s castle with bite marks near his heart.Back in Wisberg, Ellen, too, is falling ill while staying with friends. And a local doctor is helpless to deal with her weird affliction. In a menacing turn of events, she sleeps fitfully while dreaming  of Orlok, and not in a good way.This is not a horror story that tries to shock viewers with cheap tricks and jump scares. In fact, it rolls out slowly with a tragic air of foreboding, like an evil mist that envelops everything it touches.

Author: Rick Douglas