Category: Film Reviews by Amy

Ryan Gosling says “I’ll save you, movie!” in The Fall Guy, a rompy movie with nods to the 1980s TV show.

Gosling brings the soft-serve swirl of good-humored goofiness and slightly winky competence from 2016’s The Nice Guys to the role of Colt Seaver, a crackerjack stunt man. Colt has found professional success by being a stunt man for Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a megawatt star with an even more blinding ego. Personally, Colt has found romantic success with Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), a camerawoman with directing dreams. When the movie starts, the two are working together on a Tom Ryder movie — but not for long. Colt has a devastating accident and, humiliated and unable to deal with what he sees as a professional failure, he disappears, even from Jody.

A year and a half later he is working as a valet when Gail (Hannah Waddingham), Tom’s producer and fixer, calls to Colt to get him to come to Australia to work on Tom’s new movie. Jody, who is directing, asked for him in particular, Gail says. When Colt shows up on set, he quickly finds that this is not true. But, with the head of the stunt department, Dan Tucker (Winston Duke), who is also Colt’s longtime friend, insisting that Colt is the only stuntman available, Jody reluctantly agrees to let him stay to work on Metalstorm, a sci-fi alien love-story something.

That’s all kind of a lot of setup that feels like it takes a lot of time to get to the real reason Colt has been called to Australia: Tom is missing and Gail wants Colt to find him before someone notices he is gone and the movie is stalled.

So while Colt is working with Jody, who sees new story possibilities for Tom’s Metalstorm character now that Colt is around to do more thrilling stunts — with Tom’s face to be pasted on digitally in post — and Colt is trying to find a way to make up with the woman he still loves, Colt is also doing some basic detectiving of the “look for clues, go see a guy at a club” variety.

For me, the movie has the most mission clarity during the “Colt Seaver, stunt man detective” scenes. Elsewhere, it felt like there was a lot of piling on of Things: rom-com-iness, meta commentary on movies, stunt man process-y stuff (which I also liked), Emily Blunt’s whatever she’s doing with Jody, Hannah Waddingham doing like 1980s businesswoman, a bit of buddy business between Colt and Dan. It’s a “three songs playing at once” effect to have all of these things happening at once, at the same volume, in one scene. When Colt is looking for clues or trying to find a guy who last saw Tom and the movie’s other elements are more packed in around that, things seem to click together better.

That said, I basically liked those other elements. I just wished they’d been put together a bit better. Blunt’s Jody has perfectly fine chemistry with Gosling’s Colt; Dan and Colt have some good buddy moments; there is, in classic movie fashion, a bit with a dog. It’s all fine, and without Gosling this would have been a perfectly satisfactory Netflix-movie type outing. Gosling elevates it all. He brings a sparkle, a tonally perfect approach to the movie’s humor and an energy that helps the movie transcend some of its overstuffed-combo-platter feel. B

Rated PG-13 for action and violence, drug content and some strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by David Leitch and written by Drew Pearce, The Fall Guy is two hours and six minutes long and distributed by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: The Fall Guy.

Tennis and sex get all tangled up in the lives of three promising tennis players in Challengers.

Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) is the true star athlete of the trio, getting endorsements from Adidas as a teen and having the world in awe of her skills. She decides to go to Stanford, even though it means waiting a few years until she turns pro, and the crowds at the university turn out for her wearing “The Duncanator” T-shirts.

Fellow tennis player Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) thinks the reason she’s going to Stanford is to build up anticipation for her pro career. While Patrick’s longtime friend and doubles partner Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) is wowed by Tashi’s game play, Patrick is more wowed by the Zendaya-ness of Tashi. When they first meet — at a party thrown by Adidas for Tashi at a multiday tennis tournament — both boys ask for Tashi’s phone number, basically at once, in front of her. Tashi says she isn’t a homewrecker, though she does show up at their shared hotel room later that night and makes it clear that she attracted to both boys — and we see that there is a strong something between the two of them as well. She declares that she will give the winner of the next day’s match between Art and Patrick her phone number. Patrick wins and we see her dating him while she’s at Stanford and he’s on tour.

But that was years earlier. The movie starts with Tashi as a coach and wife to Art and with the men preparing to meet once again on the court after years of not really speaking. Tashi is as laser-focused and aggressive as a coach as she once was as a player — coaching being really her only way onto the court. As the trailers give away, she suffers a devastating injury before she is able to turn pro.

This movie serves you a lot of sexiness. Some of it feels like perfume ad sexiness, a lot of skin and close-ups of hot people and implied nudity (as well as actual nudity, all of the dude variety, which is a nice change of pace) without a whole lot of emotional impact. The movie does have fun with the melodrama of those moments, though — Challengers has sort of a smirky sense of humor throughout that keeps everything grounded.

The real heat is actually in the tennis, both the literal game played between Patrick and Art that winds through all the movie’s flashbacks and the figurative games related to the friendship between the two men and their mutual desire for Tashi as well as Tashi’s hunger for competition in general. Actually, Tashi is all tennis — the volley, the quick decisions for how to respond, the attempts to psy-ops your opponent, the excitement of being in the mix of things. Even when she can’t play the sport of tennis anymore she seems pretty eager to bring the vibes of tennis into her life, no matter how messy it makes things.

Zendaya brings a crazy intensity to Tashi that makes this movie compelling even when it feels like a prep school soap opera. It’s a fun soap opera with characters I enjoyed watching, especially when they’re being less-than-great people. You believe that these two at-times goober-y dudes would fall hard for this woman who extremely out-classes them both in tennis and in life. Zendaya is even able to make you believe that the talented but frustrated Tashi enjoys the strange dynamic of her relationships with each man.

The movie may have the plot points of a sexy drama but it has an energy that almost makes it feel like an action movie — and I think the Art-Patrick tennis game and the way the movie shoots it is a big part of that. I don’t really know anything about tennis but the movie keeps giving us the emotional backstory to this game, which plays as a friends-turned-rivals showdown, that makes each point have some resonance. B+

Rated R for language throughout, some sexual content and graphic nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Luca Guadagnino with a screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes, Challengers is two hours and 11 minutes long and distributed in theaters by United Artists.

Featured photo: Challengers.

Guy Ritchie does an Inglourious Basterds by way of Operation Mincemeat and gets The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which is based on a true story from the nonfiction book by Damien Lewis.

As with the 2021 Netflix film Operation Mincemeat, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare gives us a young Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox) during World War II, working here for a senior officer “M” (Cary Elwes), getting mixed up in wartime spycraft that uses cunning and misdirection to defeat a seemingly better-situated German military. In this case, the plan — Operation Postmaster — is to destroy the ship that supplies the German U-boats that are making it difficult for the British to get food and military reinforcements from America. The ship is in the Spanish-controlled port of an island off the Atlantic coast of Africa. Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill), a British officer known for breaking rules and not following orders, is charged with putting together a small crew to sail to the port and blow up the ship — but, like, quietly and unofficially in a way that won’t put the British in open conflict with Franco’s Spain. His basterds include Anders Lassen (Reacher’s Alan Ritchson, playing the same kind of mountain-sized butt-kicking robot here), Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer), Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) and Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding — who is my fave in this movie’s collection of “men who could be the next James Bond”). In the port town, British agents Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza Gonzáles) wine and dine and generally distract and pull information from the various Nazis, the ickiest of whom is Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger). When the night of the big event arrives, Heron also enlists the help of local Kambili Kalu (Danny Sapani, who also feels like a pretty good Bond candidate).

There is an overall shagginess that slows the movie down and a flatness to the characters that I feel is not uncommon when you’re dealing with a real-world story filled with lots of real people you don’t want to leave out. There is nothing particularly new here; the movie has a “serviceable cover of a decent radio hit” feel overall.

But the group of rascalness-inclined heroes makes for a mostly fun bunch of people to hang out with for two hours. The caper elements are probably the movie’s most interesting and while I wish they were maybe a little sharper, they provide enough energy to keep the last part of the movie in particular buzzing along. B-

Rated R for strong violence throughout and some language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Guy Ritchie with a screenplay by Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson & Arash Amel and Guy Ritchie based on a book of the same name by Damien Lewis, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is two hours long and is distributed in theaters by Lionsgate.

Abigail (R)

A kidnapping gig goes hilariously wrong for a group of criminals in Abigail, a horror movie?

I mean, Abigail has the fixings of a horror movie — big creepy house with passageways and cobwebs and a gang of untrustworthy types who don’t know each other and a “maybe the killer is in here with us!” situation. But this movie is laugh-out-loud hilarious and wonderfully hammy.

The “no names” rule by boss Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) is why the gang of kidnappers calls each other Joey (Melissa Barrera), Frank (Dan Stevens, chewing all the scenery as he does what feels like a Nic Cage impression), Rickles (William Catlett), Sammy (Kathryn Newton), Peter (Kevin Durand) and Dean (Angus Cloud). They didn’t even all know that the person being kidnapped is a child, Abigail (Alisha Weir), or who her father is. Joey, a nurse charged with taking care of Abigail, promises the young girl she’ll keep her safe and get her back to her father as soon as the ransom is paid. Abigail appreciates that and tells Joey she’s sorry about what is about to happen to her.

A shaken Joey goes back to the group — who is this girl’s father and what kind of trouble are we in?

The trailers to this movie spell out exactly what kind of trouble the group is in and it is delightfully bonkers. We first see Abigail as she dances ballet to “Swan Lake” and she spends much of the movie in a ballerina outfit, bringing big M3gan vibes to everything she does. The criminal characters mostly play it straight — they are after all being picked off one by one — while still acknowledging the unreality of their situation. The movie nicely blends the tropes of a haunted house-style horror and an unreliable criminals caper with its silly-but-great central premise for an overall fun time. There are some jump scares and a significant amount of explodey, chunky gore but otherwise this is definitely a horror movie that delights in the campiness of its genre more than its frights. B,maybe even a B+ for the overall sense of glee

Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, pervasive language and brief drug use, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett with a screenplay by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, Abigail is 106 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

Jack Black returns as the voice of Po, the panda who is here to kick butt and eat dumplings, in Kung Fu Panda 4, a competent and enjoyable entry in this series.

Dragon Warrior Po was given the staff of wisdom in the third movie and his instructor Shifu (voice of Dustin Hoffman) thinks this means it’s time for Po to start thinking about a promotion to spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace, meaning he’d have to pick a new Dragon Warrior. But Po loves being the Dragon Warrior; it sounds cool and it helps his dads — panda dad Li (voice of Brian Cranston) and goose dad Ping (voice of James Han), who have become friends are are now in business together — drum up a crowd for the opening of their new noodle stand. But Shifu urges him to do more with his powers.

With the Furious Five — animals voiced by actors who are not in this movie — out fighting other battles, Po is left to investigate alone when he hears that Tai Lung (voice of Ian McShane), villain from the first movie, has somehow returned from the spirit world. Maybe it’s not actually Tai Lung, suggests Zhen (voice of Awkwafina), a fox and a thief doing time at the Valley of Peace correctional facility after Po catches her trying to steal stuff from the kung fu headquarters Jade Palace. She tells Po a villain known as The Chameleon (voice of Viola Davis) has the ability to appear as anyone and is looking to spread her influence from her current power-center of Juniper City. Zhen convinces Po to let her come on his one-last-Dragon-Warrior quest to find The Chameleon, who is a powerful sorceress and seems to be messing with the spirit world in an attempt to gain kung fu skills. Country panda Po finds the big city bewildering and he’s a little too trusting for the gang of petty thieves Zhen considers her family. Meanwhile, his nervous dads take off after him, creating fun buddy road trip antics.

My kids were on board with this movie as soon as they saw the cutesy baby bunnies who hunger for violence in the trailer. The movie basically sticks to this tone of animal cuteness and solidly PG action (maybe occasionally scary for the littlest movie goers) and butt-kicking (skadoosh) mixed with overall silliness. Occasional moments of earnestness are never allowed to get too sweetsy and villainous evil is often cut with humor or a sense that someone with a legitimate beef has made, as they say at school, a wrong choice. B

Rated PG for martial arts action/mild violence, scary images and some mild rude humor, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Mike Mitchell and Stephanie Ma Stine with a screenplay by Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger and Darren Lemke (with additional screenplay material by David Lindsay-Abaire and Lillian Yu), Kung Fu Panda 4 is an hour and 34 minutes long and is distributed by Universal Studios. Want to make sure the Kung Fu Panda universe is your kid’s thing before you shell out for theater tickets? According to JustWatch.com, find original Kung Fu Panda streaming on Peacock and Freevee, Kung Fu Panda 2 streaming on Peacock Premium, Kung Fu Panda 3 streaming on Netflix and all of those films available for rent or purchase. There is also an assortment of series and specials available on different streaming services (and a few specials not apparently available anywhere) but the most recent, Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight, has three seasons available on Netflix, JustWatch.com said.

Featured photo: Kung Fu Panda 4.

The Fremen help Paul Atreides, gifted with both visions of the future and preternaturally good hair, fight the weirdos of House Harkonnen in Dune: Part Two, a movie about sand and vibes.

Previously on Dune: Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and his mom Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), who is pregnant, had to run off and hide in the deserts of Arrakis, the planet from which comes Spice — a space fuel that can also make your eyes blue. House Harkonnen, which had controlled Arrakis but was stripped of the Spice trade by the Emperor, attacked the Atreides base on Arrakis and killed Paul’s very hot father Leto (Oscar Issac), previously head of House Atreides and Duke of Arrakis. The Harkonnen are now back in charge of Arrakis but are fighting an insurgent war with the Fremen, the indigenous people of Arrakis who would like all of these Spice-hungry imperial families to just go home.

Paul and Lady Jessica are hanging out with the Fremen in part because that’s the only way they can survive the desert, in part because some of the Fremen think Paul might be their messiah and in part because Paul has been dreaming about Chani (Zendaya), a Fremen girl who he’d like to ask “hey, how you doin’?” Stilgar (Javier Bardem), leader of that particular tribe or whatever of Fremen, is pretty sure Paul is the messiah and says increasingly crazy things about following him. Chani is not impressed with all this religious fervor her maybe-boyfriend is inspiring — and how much worse it could be in the fundamentalist south of the planet — but she doesn’t seem to let that get in the way of sharing a tent with Paul.
Meanwhile, Lady Jessica, a member of the order of magic-y religious-y ladies called the Bene Gesserit, spends a lot of time talking to her unborn daughter, who talks back and can also talk with Paul sometimes via dreams (I think?). Jessica has been made a Reverend Mother of Arrakis, which is helping her push this whole “Paul is the Messiah” thing which she does a bit out of genuine belief maybe but mostly out of a sense that it will help him survive and gain the power that comes with a Fremen army.

Also meanwhile, the Harkonnens are finding themselves losing Spice production equipment to the Fremen rebels. When Glossu Rabban Harkonnen (Dave Bautista) can’t get the Fremen in line, his way-crazier, even creepier younger brother Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler) shows up to bomb stuff and be super evil.

Further meanwhile, the Emperor (Christopher Walken, whose character has a more elaborate name but who I always just thought of as “Emperor Christopher Walker”) is watching all this drama from afar, afraid that the other families will find out he was behind the fall of House Atreides. His daughter Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) helpfully narrates some of this information; she mostly hangs around and looks concerned until the end when it becomes clear that she will have more to do next time if there is a next time.

Which I suspect there will be, as Dune: Part Two, for all that I will forget most of that plot by the time Part Three shows up, made $82 million in its opening weekend, according to IMDb. And I predict it will likely match Dune: Part One’sbig Oscar nomination haul next year — Part One had 10 nods, with six wins: Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects, Original Score, Cinematography and Film Editing. I fully expect it to be very competitive in those categories again, as well as Costume Design and Makeup and Hairstyling (two categories it was nominated in in 2022 but didn’t win). Will it get Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay nominations like it did last time too? Maybe, why not — it straddles the line between beautiful art and movie that gets its own commemorative popcorn box. Part Two looks beautiful, just as Part One did, but maybe feels like even more of a feat because this world isn’t brand new and we get more of the shades-of-brown Arrakis and the black-and-white Harkonnen home world. It’s lovely and creepy, according to what it needs to be, and I really did find myself dazzled by little details like the Bene Gesserit robes given to Lady Jessica or the fancy if kinda stupid headpieces worn by Princess Irulan. I mean, a lot of this doesn’t hold up to deep thought — it’s 10,000 years in the future and we’re still doing billowy capes? — but don’t ask a lot of questions and it looks great.

I feel like Part Two is also an improvement on Part One’s glacial pace. Sure, a merciless editor could have tightened this puppy up a good hour and we wouldn’t have lost anything, but I didn’t mind spending time in this world. The push and pull between Paul’s desires for Freman support but uneasiness with Fremen worship is moderately interesting and I am not too bothered by the generally chilly relationship between Paul and Chani because they’re both fully Movie Stars. Which I guess is how I feel about all of the characters. Everybody looks great — does not in any way resemble a human person and not just a game board piece — but they look great and hold your attention while on screen.

It’s all fine, is what I’m saying, Dune: Part Two is fine — like, better than average for a popcorn movie if not dazzling me with brilliant story or dialogue. But is that really why most of us are here? The big worms are cool, the “waaah”s on the soundtrack are unsettling and the sand looks so much more photogenic than sand is in real life. B

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some suggestive material and brief strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Denis Villeneuve with a screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, based on the novel by Frank Herbert, Dune: Part Two is two hours and 46 minutes long and released in theaters this time by Legendary Features Productions and Warner Bros.

Featured photo: Dune: Part Two.