Film Review - The Fall Guy (2024)

The Fall Guy is based off of the TV Series and stars Ryan Gosling as a stuntman recovering from an on set accident when he is asked to go to Sydney, Australia to stunt double for Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) at the request of his director Jody (Emily Blunt) but while in Sydney Tom goes missing and the stunt man must now go and find him so Jody can finish her film Metalstorm.

The Fall Guy is a lot of fun and is the type of Romancing the Stone knockoff that February’s Argylle utterly failed to be with a dash of Robert Altman’s great film the Player from 1992 thrown in for good measure and some of the movie stuff I had a lot of fun.

Also good fun is Gosling as Colt the titular stunt man and for the second time in a row I have enjoyed him in a movie, that Kenergy from Barbie last year must have rubbed off on him as he is as fun and enjoyable here as he was in that film, Taylor-Johnson is good as well as are Winston Duke as a stunt coordinator, Stephanie Hsu in a small role and Hannah Waddingham and Teresa Palmer (good South Australian kid) in their roles.

But what didn’t work as well for me was Emily Blunt, don’t get me wrong she is a great actress but I didn’t really like her all that much in this role as it feels like she has little to no chemistry with Gosling and he just towers over her in their scenes together and that wasn’t the case when he was playing against Margot Robbie in Barbie last year, personally I would’ve gone with her Devil Wears Prada co-star Anne Hathaway for this role as has that similar vibe to what Gosling does and they would’ve made a much better pairing.

And so that was the Fall Guy and Blunt aside this is a fun time at the movies and for film lovers, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Abigail (2024)

Abigail is the new horror film by the team called Radio Silence who directed the 2 most recent Scream films and 2019’s fun horror film Ready or Not and this movie concerns a group of people (Melissa Barrera, Kevin Durand, Dan Stevens, Angus Cloud and Kathryn Newton) who kidnap a little girl (Alisha Weir) from her wealthy father at the expense of Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) but this little girl is not who her kidnappers think she is.

Abigail is a lot of fun and is much more in line with the tone and feel of Ready or Not than the Scream films Radio Silence made and more than once I had a big smile on my face as this movie has a lot of fun with its horror premise and its one location of a large house similar to Ready or Not and it really works well.

What also works well is the main cast, Barrera I have loved since In the Heights and while it was very disappointing to she her dumped from the Scream franchise recently she shows here why that decision was even more stupid as she does a lot with what could be a thin role on the page and she has a great screen presence with just her eyes and facial expressions, Durand really needs to play Elon Musk in the biopic about him because the likeness is uncanny and he too is good as are Stevens and Esposito in their roles though Cloud and Newton weren’t as good as their performances did very little for me.

But little Alisha Weir is the real standout here and she does a lot with this character and I won’t say too much more than that as the surprises with her character are fun to discover but she does a great job with them.

And so that was Abigail and horror fans will have a lot of fun with this one as I did, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Challengers (2024)

Challengers is the new film by director Luca Guadagnino and stars Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor as three young tennis pros who meet in the late 2000’s and form a love triangle of sorts but many years later Tashi (Zendaya’s character) has fallen for Art (Faist’s character) and now he finds himself a waning pro but before he can go for one last championship shot he’ll have to face Patrick (O’Connor’s character) in a tennis match.

Challengers was a film that I had heard a lot of good things about before seeing it and the feeling I got reading early reviews was that this was potentially better than Dune Part Two and going into it I was expecting this hot, steamy film with electric chemistry between it’s leads and I didn’t get that instead I found myself very mixed on this movie as a whole.

First off Zendaya is terrific here and along with her work in the Dune films by Denis Villeneuve she shows what a great young talent she can be when she has a good character and a good director she can work with as opposed to her forgettable work in the Spider-Man films where it feels like she was just told to stand there, hit her marks, say her lines and it will all be added in post production and those films waste her where as here and in Dune she’s great.

Also I liked the tennis scenes, they are well directed and have some real energy to them and I also liked the storyline of Faist’s character as the seasoned professional wanting one last shot at the elusive open championship he hasn’t been able to get.

But what didn’t work as well was the love triangle, the hot steamy chemistry I had heard about before seeing it wasn’t really there, those scenes are okay but didn’t really do it for me and it isn’t helped that both Faist and O’Connor didn’t really do it for me in their performances, Faist I loved in West Side Story and I could see him becoming a lead after that film but whatever Steven Spielberg saw in him isn’t there under Guadagnino’s direction and it’s a real shame as he’s a good young actor.

But the real weak link here was O’Connor, both his performance and his character did next to nothing for me, the latter is a terrible person and you just don’t know why Tashi would fall for him and O’Connor’s performance just felt flat at times and the rivalry he had with Art didn’t really work for me either, I wish that the love triangle segment had been scaled down so this tennis rivalry could be brought into more focus as I found that much more interesting.

And so that was Challengers and it’s a mixed bag for me overall, some parts work, other parts didn’t, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Civil War (2024)

Civil War is the new film by Alex Garland and stars Kirsten Dunst, Steven McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny and Wagner Moura as a team of photo journalists during a Civil War in the United States of America where they hope to interview the President (Nick Offerman) before the Western Front takes Washington DC and executes him but that journey will not be an easy one especially with armed men and women around any corner.

Civil War is sadly a disappointment for me film wise and it’s a shame because I was looking forward to it, I liked the previews for the film and I also like movies about journalists doing their job on film though some are better than others.

Before I delve more into my disappointment I want to talk about what I did like and that is for the most part the performances, Dunst/Henderson and Moura make a good trio and play off each other well in their scenes together while Spaeny is very good as the young rookie who finds herself face to face with the very combat she wants to photograph someday.

I also enjoyed seeing Jimmy from Yellowstone in a small role and Jesse Plemons steals the movie with one scene who is at times amusing but also very scary and Plemons’s ability to switch from comedy to straight laced roles is a great one.

Also the film is well made by Garland as a director, the world he creates here is a very real looking one where danger lurks around every corner and you never know who you will come across on the journey to Washington, will it be friend? Will it be foe? The film does a very good job at showcasing this and it really brings you into the world of the film.

Sadly Garland the writer does not do this as well and here is where the film fell down most for me, the world building on the page is very thin and more often than not while watching it I kept thinking to myself “How did we get here?” “What happened?” “Who are the main factions?” and the film doesn’t really give you any answers to those questions and I wanted some especially when you have journalists as your leads who could’ve asked some of these questions without it interfering with the broader storytelling too much and more than once I thought of the opening scene from Mad Max 2 which gave you a brief enough history of the time of chaos, the ruined dreams, the wasted land and the white line nightmare on the roads before throwing you into the action and I wish Garland had done similar here.

Now I get you don’t want to over explain things but some explanation would’ve gone a long way to making this movie a winner.

Before seeing this movie I thought of a similar film called Under Fire from 1983 directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Gene Hackman, Nick Nolte and Joanna Cassidy as photo journalists in Nicaragua and I think I would’ve enjoyed that film more than this one which was a big letdown despite some strong positives, 2 out of 5.