Review: 'The Fall Guy' is a fun meta-homage to stunt performers, and a showcase for the onscreen chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt

Among the many ways director David Leitch’s fizzy action rom-com “The Fall Guy” pays tribute to the work of Hollywood’s stunt community is its very structure — by making something that’s intricately thought out in every detail look effortlessly tossed out there for our entertainment.

Verrrry loosely inspired by the ‘80s TV series starring Lee Majors, “The Fall Guy” centers on Colt Seavers (played by Ryan Gosling), a veteran stunt performer whose steady gig for the last six years has been as stunt double for one of Hollywood’s biggest and most arrogant stars, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). 

That ends when Colt is injured on a stunt — a long fall in a hotel foyer that Leitch seems to carry off in one unbroken take, with Gosling is doing the falling. However, as the movie teaches us later, the latest technology is “deep fakes,” in which the star’s head can be transposed onto the stunt performer’s body. It’s just the first of many examples of how screenwriter Drew Pearce (“Iron Man 3,” “Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation”) anticipates everything we think we know about moviemaking — specifically, making an action blockbuster — and toys with those ideas.

Before his fall, Colt was well into a wonderfully romantic interlude with one of the film’s camera operators, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). After the fall, though, Colt withdraws from the industry, the world, and Jody — and 18 months later is parking cars at a Mexican restaurant in L.A.

Then Colt gets a call from Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), the hard-charging producer of Ryder’s films. Gail tells Colt she needs him to perform some stunts on Ryder’s current shoot, an action-packed science-fiction love story being filmed in Australia. Colt declines, until Gail tells him that the director is Jody, who specifically asked for him to work on her first film as a director.

Colt arrives, reteaming with stunt coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke), and soon learns that Gail was lying — Jody didn’t know he was coming, and doesn’t want him on her set. Seems that Jody is still nursing some pain over their abrupt break-up. But before they can resolve those issues, Gail delivers Colt some disturbing news: Ryder has gone missing, and she needs Colt to find him before Jody and the studio find out.

This mission sets Colt off on a pursuit of the spoiled actor, and a line of clues — and, this being an action movie, a series of breakneck stunt pieces in which Colt (or, more accurately, Gosling’s stunt double) is shot at, punched, tossed around, dragged behind vehicles, thrown through windshields and put through other death-defying events.

Leitch (“Deadpool 2,” “Atomic Blonde,” “Bullet Train”) was a stunt man and stunt coordinator before he became a director, and it’s abundantly clear in this film how much he loves the stunt community and the crazy things they do for our entertainment. (Yes, there’s a none-too-subtle mention of how stunt performers don’t have a category at the Oscars.) He shows us the sweat and precision that goes into creating such stunts, without detracting from how fun they are to watch onscreen.

What burns even brighter than the movie’s pyrotechnics is the movie chemistry between Gosling and Blunt. We’ve had hints of their shared appeal recently, in their joint appearances on the Academy Awards and “Saturday Night Live.” Here, the combination is perfection, producing both comedic and romantic sparks. (To be fair, I’d love to see a rom-com starring the actors’ real-life spouses, Eva Mendes and John Krasinski, just to balance things.)

“The Fall Guy” works because the stars, like the action pieces, are giving their all without looking like they’re trying too hard. It’s as much a balancing act as any stunt in the movie, and the results are breathtaking.

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‘The Fall Guy’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, May 3, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for action and violence, drug content and some strong language. Running time: 126 minutes.

Review: 'The Idea of You' elevates the romantic drama, with Anne Hathaway radiant as a single mom in a surprising relationship with a young pop star

The swoon-worthy drama “The Idea of You” performs a double service by reminding viewers of the intrinsic value of two much-maligned aspects of the movies: Anne Hathaway and the very notion of romantic movies for grownups.

Hathaway, who’s one of the movie’s producers, stars as Solène Marchand, an art gallery owner in Los Angeles’ Silverlake neighborhood, living with her 16-year-old daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin). Solène is looking forward to a solo camping trip while her ex, Daniel (Reid Scott), takes Izzy and her friends to Coachella for a VIP meet-and-greet with the boy band August Moon. But when Daniel flakes out, Solène suddenly has to chaperone Izzy instead.

While chilling in the VIP area, Solène goes looking for a bathroom — and ends up accidentally in the trailer of August Moon’s charming lead singer, Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine). It’s an awkward meet-cute, but it’s hard to ignore the sparks flying between them. For Hayes, it’s a rare instance where he’s meeting a woman who isn’t a fawning fangirl. Solène, on the other hand, intuits that there’s more to Hayes than good looks and a charming English accent.

So it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise when Hayes shows up at Solène’s gallery and offers to buy every item on display. Solène stands up to that rich-boy arrogance, and speaks eloquently of the labor and thought that her artists expended to create these works. Hayes wants to see more art, so Solène takes him to the studio of one of her artist friends — sneaking him out of the neighborhood through the paparazzi and August Moon fans who amass wherever he’s spotted.

It doesn’t take long before the two are kissing. Not long after that – after Solène conveniently drops Izzy off at summer camp — Hayes invites her to New York, where they spend a day or two in a hotel having some excellent sex. (Or so we assume. The bedroom scenes are tastefully shot, and usually cut away before anything that would scare the Prime Video viewers.) By the end of the weekend, Hayes invites Solène to join the band on their European tour, and she says yes.

Director Michael Showalter (“The Big Sick”) and co-screenwriter Jennifer Westfeldt (“Kissing Jessica Stein”), in adapting Robinne Lee’s novel, find more meat than is typical in modern romance movies. The script tries to tackle some hard emotional issues — about divorce, trust issues, the choice to lean into a new love, and both characters’ reluctance to open up about what they’re really feeling — and does so with intelligence and a full heart. Only in the last half hour do the plot mechanics kick in, with Solène and Hayes dealing with the reality of the entire internet learning of their relationship.

Galitzine is definitely a charmer, and digs into a character who’s broader and deeper than the boy-band stereotype. And, as those who saw him as Camila Cabello’s prince in 2022’s “Cinderella” can attest, he can sing, too.

But it’s Hathaway who carries the movie’s emotional weight, and does so gracefully. She delivers Solène’s full range of feelings — the surprise and joy of a new relationship, the self-doubt when it seems to be going too well, and the guilt at keeping the relationship secret from Izzy — in a fully realized performance. Hathaway makes “The Idea of You” one of the sharpest, most honest romances you’ve seen in a long time.

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‘The Idea of You’

★★★1/2

Starts streaming Thursday, May 2, on Prime video. Rated R for some language and sexual content.  Running time: 115 minutes.

Review: 'Challengers' presents a sexy love triangle that shows why Zendaya is the star of her generation

It was only a matter of time — after scoring two Emmys for “Euphoria” and playing the girlfriend roles in three “Spider-Man” movies and “Dune: Part Two” — before Zendaya would get a movie to shine as the powerful star that she is.

“Challengers,” a sexy love triangle set in the world of professional tennis, is that movie. And Zendaya is spectacular in it, matched well with male stars Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, all helmed by director Luca Guadagnino — who finds in his leading lady the perfect person to act out his sexual power dynamics.

Zendaya plays Tashi Donaldson, who we meet at a tennis tournament where her husband, Art Donaldson (Faist), whom Tashi coaches, is the odds-on favorite to win. But there’s a surprise at this tournament: A late entry by a journeyman player, Patrick Zweig (O’Connor). And to say Tashi, Art and Patrick have some history is understatement.

The script, by first-time screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, takes us back 13 years, when Art and Patrick are best friends, on the rise in the juniors tennis circuit. At one tournament, they meet Tashi, a phenom player who’s on her way to be one of the greats. After the tourney, the three of them are together in a hotel room and … well, if you’ve seen the trailer, you have some idea of what happens next.

In the intervening years, Guadagnino shows us how the guys’ competitive nature spilled off the court and onto their dealings with Tashi, who goes from dating Patrick to marrying Art. The boys, though, aren’t Tashi’s primary focus — she doesn’t think love means nothing, as the old tennis joke goes, but the game means more. And when her dreams of Grand Slam titles are sidelined by a knee injury, she becomes determined to channel her tennis knowledge and drive into Art. 

In the movie’s terms, Zendaya is the champion in every way. Guadagnino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (who also collaborated with the director on “Call Me By Your Name” and “Suspiria”) gravitate toward her at every opportunity — who wouldn’t? — and she matches that attention with a performance that’s blazing with intensity. The intimate scenes she shares with O’Connor (“The Crown”) and Faist (“West Side Story”) are fiery and passionate, and not for a moment is she not in control.

I can’t say much about the ending, the rare sports showdown where the winner isn’t pre-ordained. It’s for sure going to get people talking. Some may find it a cheat, but I believe it’s the only way — knowing what we know about these characters and what matters to them — it could have played out, and it gives “Challengers” an added delightful twist.

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‘Challengers’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, April 26, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language throughout, some sexual content and graphic nudity. Running time: 131 minutes.

Review: 'Boy Kills World' is a bloody mess of an action movie, whose brains don't quite match its bravado

The blood-drenched action orgy of “Boy Kills World” should be everything a lover of over-the-top mayhem could hope for — breathtaking martial-arts moves, copious violence and bodies splattering like ketchup bottles dropped from a great height.

So why does this exercise in excess by rookie German director Moritz Mohr feel so draining? I think it’s because the movie can’t resist nudging the viewer in the ribs every five minutes to point out how clever it thinks it is.

The movie’s title hero, known to us only as Boy, is interoduced as a child (played by Nicholas and Cameron Crovetti), ruthlessly trained by a character known as Shaman (played by the Indonesian martial-arts star Yayan Ruhian) to be a killing machine. Boy is taught, quite brutally, to sacrifice all comfort and emotion to train his body to kill Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen), the oligarch who runs the nearby city-state. 

Boy believes that Hilda is responsible for killing his mother and forever separating him from his sister, Mina (Quinn Copeland), whom Boy sees as a hallucination or imaginary friend. Boy is deaf and mute, but can understand people by reading their lips — though it’s an imperfect skill. Boy also listens a lot to a voice in his head, his inner narrator, a voice based on a video game character (provided for the movie by H. Jon Benjamin, known for his roles in “Bob’s Burgers” and “Archer”).

Boy grows up under Shaman’s regimen, and as an adult (played by Bill Skarsgard) is determined to get close enough to Hilda to kill her. That’s easier said than done, with Hilda locked away somewhere in the city, surrounded by a security squad led by the toughest fighter of all, known as June 27 (Jessica Rothe). Boy finds help from two resistance fighters, Basho (“Bullet Train’s” Andrew Koji) and Bennie (Isaiah Mustafa). 

The plan is to get to Hilda through the Culling, the semi-annual ritual Hilda uses to maintain her reign of terror, where dissidents are rounded up to fight in a televised death match. Hilda’s son Glen (Sharlto Copley) is the Culling’s on-air emcee, though the brains of the operation are his wife, Melanie (Michelle Dockery), who produces the spectacle, and his brother Gideon (Brett Gelman), who writes the scripts.

There should be plenty of room in all this choreographed madness for some biting satire of the Van Der Koy’s fascist rule, the corrosive effect of TV violence or, you know, any of the targets writers Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers devise in the set-up. But the movie misses major opportunities to show it’s got brains behind the bashing.

Eventually “Boy Meets World” disappoints, delivering lots of punches but never landing a moment that’s a true knockout.

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‘Boy Kills World’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, April 26, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, language, some drug use and sexual references. Running time: 115 minutes.

Review: 'Unsung Hero' is an earnest and humane telling of a family's faith and togetherness — and how they paid off in the Christian music scene

Like many of the Christian-centered movies produced by brothers Andrew and Jon Erwin — a list that includes “I Still Believe,” “American Underdog,” “Jesus Revolution” and “Ordinary Angels” — the family drama “Unsung Hero” is based on a true story and captures people at a point where faith and family pull them through tough times.

What makes these movies fascinating isn’t the faith part — that’s a given in these movies — but the specific ways family comes through as the ultimate expression of love.

If this all feels too cloying and sentimental for your tastes, you can find your entertainment elsewhere. It’s not all my cup of tea sometimes, either, but I recognize when it’s being done with heart and sincerity.

People familiar with the Christian music scene — this movie’s target audience — likely know where this movie is going. It’s the origin story of Christian singing star Rebecca St. James, and of her brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone, better known as the Christian pop duo For King & Country. (The marketing, including the poster labeling this as “A For King & Country Film,” spoiled it before I did.)

The movie tells of the Smallbone family, parents David (Joel Smallbone of For King & Country, the movie’s co-director, plays his own father) and Helen (Daisy Betts) and their six children. When we first meet the family in 1991, David is a Christian concert promoter in Australia, eager to make the big time by booking the American star Amy Grant for a tour of Australia. He does so, in the midst of an economic depression, and the effort leaves him and his family deeply in debt.

Their one hope, David convinces Helen, is to take the family to the States so he can represent a Christian musician there. So the family packs up and moves to Tennessee, only to find the musician has signed with his old manager (Don Most), leaving David with no way to provide for his family. Led by Helen, though, the family rallies, taking odd jobs and pooling their dimes and dollars. They’re buoyed by David’s father, James (Terry O’Quinn), back in Australia, who reminds David that “family’s not in the way — they are the way.”

The family receives help from a couple they meet at church, Jed (Lucas Black), a songwriter in Nashville, and his wife, Kay (Candace Cameron Bure). Their charity is much appreciated by the Smallbones — though, after a while, David finds his pride is wounded and he starts to get irritated at their generosity.

By chance, the Smallbones also meet record producer Eddie Degarmo (Jonathan Jackson), who remembers David from his Australian promoter days. He recognizes that David is driven to work and support his family. Degarmo also recognizes, thanks to a tip from Jed, that the Smallbones’ eldest daughter, Rebecca (Kirrilee Berger), has an amazing singing voice and could become a star.

Joel Smallbone and co-director Richard Ramsey (they also wrote the screenplay) make the family story a celebration of a big, rambunctious family finding strength in each other. And, as the title “Unsung Hero” implies, there’s one among them carrying the biggest load — Helen, and Betts brings out the quiet dignity and no-nonsense grit she must have showed to get the family through hard times.. 

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‘Unsung Hero’

★★★

Opens Friday, April 26, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for thematic elements. Running time: 112 minutes.

Review: In 'The Scargiver,' Zach Snyder delivers a humorless second chapter to his 'Rebel Moon' franchise

If there’s an overarching reaction to director Zack Snyder’s deadeningly self-serious space opera “Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver,” it’s this: That’s all there is?!?

The first chapter, subtitled “A Child of Fire,” arrived on a cloud of Netflix-provided hype last December, billed as Snyder’s triumphant return to big-budget action movies and the start of a world-building franchise. If you want a sense of how well the movie was received — in spite of Snyder’s boast that, factoring in Netflix’s algorithms, more people saw it than bought a ticket for “Barbie” — observe that the second installment is barely making a ripple in its marketing.

The thing is, I was willing to meet “Rebel Moon” halfway. I thought the first movie was boring and bloated, but I figured that was what Snyder had to do as a warm-up for part 2, which would undoubtedly be an action extravaganza from start to finish.

So it’s surprising that after all the setting-up of part one, the second part, “The Scargiver,” spends the first of its two hours setting stuff up again. We get more reminders of Kora (Sofia Boutella), the former Imperial bodyguard to the King (Cary Elwes) and his daughter, Princess Issa (Stella Grace Fitzgerald), who was framed for an assassination attempt and fled to the peaceful farm world of Veldt. And we are reintroduced to Kora’s enemy, the evil Imperial leader Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein).

The script — by Snyder, Shay Hatten and Kurt Johnstad — also reunites with with the fighters Kora and Veldt local Gunnar (Michiel Housman) have gathered. They are: The retired general, Titus (Djimon Hounsou); the enigmant swordswoman, Nemesis (Doona Bae); the dashing warrior, Tarak (Staz Nair); and the tough-as-nails fighter Milius (E. Duffy). Each gets an extended flashback that explains what they were doing, and why they want the empire to fall.

Then, after what seems like an eternity of wooden line readings, Snyder starts the fighting. The action isn’t bad, though it often feels like Snyder is recycling moves from earlier films — especially his reliance on artfully crafted super-slow-motion. It feels like Snyder’s remaking “300,” but he gave the Spartans pew-pew laser guns.

It’s interesting to recall that Snyder reportedly pitched “Rebel Moon” to Netflix after LucasFilm rejected his pitch for a “Star Wars” movie. If so, it seems that Snyder completely missed what made the “Star Wars” franchise so memorable — not the gear or the tech, but the way George Lucas (and subsequent directors) took a cue from the classic movie serials, like “Buck Rogers” and “Flash Gordon,” that wanted to give viewers a thrill and didn’t take themselves too seriously. If there is even a milligram of humor in “Rebel Moon,” it vanishes amid all the clutter and noise.

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‘Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver’

★1/2

Starts streaming Friday, April 19, on Netflix. Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, brief strong language and suicide. Running time: 124 minutes.

Review: 'Abigail' is a loopy, goopy mix of horror and humor

A down-and-dirty horror movie with a surprisingly upscale cast, “Abigail” delivers a fair share of shocks, gross-out moments and enough humor to make it digestible.

We’re given just as much information as we need to start: Six criminals, none of whom know each other, have been assembled for a particular job — to kidnap the ballet-loving 12-year-old daughter (Alisha Weir) of a rich man, and hold her for 24 hours while daddy pays a $50 million ransom. The organizer, who identifies himself as Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito), has found a secluded hunting lodge where they can keep the girl while they wait.

The six are, initially, assigned fake names — the leader, Frank (Dan Stevens); the driver, Dean (Angus Cloud); the hacker, Sammy (Kathryn Newton); the muscle, Peter (Kevin Durant); the medic, Joey (Melissa Barrera); and the sniper, Rickles (Will Catlett). The girl, Abigail, is tucked away in one room, and the only one of the six who’s supposed to talk to her is Joey.

It doesn’t take long for the six to start getting squirrelly with each other — Joey helps this by accurately describing each of her cohort’s personality traits and likely past occupations. But when they figure out that Abigail’s father is a notorious crime lord with a habit of dismembering those who irritate him, Frank reconsiders whether they should keep holding the girl. 

Then — and it’s aggravating that the movie’s marketing gives away this plot twist — we all learn what Abigail’s real game is, and that suddenly the criminals are in more peril than she is.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett — they made the wickedly clever “Ready or Not” and the last two “Scream” movies, which starred Barrera — deploy a ghoulish sense of humor throughout the mayhem and blood spray. The funniest, most wicked moment comes when the surviving criminals realize what they’re dealing with, and run through everything they’ve learned from movies about killing such a monster.

Most of the cast is better than the material provided by writers Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, and seem to relish digging into the over-the-top aspects of the horror story. Barrera has proven her final-girl bonafides with the “Scream” movies, and carries the movie’s emotional weight. Among the rest of the ensemb.e, Stevens and Newton, in particular, lock in on the darkly comic and terrifying vibe being pursued.

Certainly “Abigail” could have been tighter — it takes nearly an hour to get to the big reveal on which the story pivots. But when it’s cooking, “Abigail” is bloody entertaining.

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‘Abigail’

★★★

Opens Friday, April 19, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong blood violence and gore throughout, pervasive language and brief drug use. Running time: 109 minutes.

Review: 'The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare' is a roisterous, but somewhat slow-moving, World War II spy action movie

It’s clear watching the rollicking World War II spy adventure “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” that director Guy Ritchie and his actors, led by Henry Cavill, were having a fun time. I just wish we, in the audience, were having as much fun.

It’s 1942, and the United States has just entered the war. Unfortunately for Britain, they have been delayed in helping out in the European theater because the Germans are roaming the North Atlantic with their U-boats, making shipments of armaments impossible. Britain’s top spymaster, Brigadier Gubbins (Cary Elwes), orders one of his junior officers, named Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox) — yes, the guy who later created the character James Bond — to come up with a plan to handle the U-boat problem. 

The answer comes in the form of an unconventional officer, Gus March-Phillips (played by Cavill), whom they find in an English prison. March-Phillips is recruited to an off-the-books mission — to sail down to an island off the coast of Equatorial Guinea and destroy an Italian supply ship that carries gear for the U-boat fleet. March-Phillips agrees, on the condition he can assemble his own team.

The team, of course, is as rough-and-tumble as he is: A Swedish assassin (Alan Ritchson), an explosives expert (Henry Golding), an Irish navigator (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) and a master planner (Alex Pettyfer) who they have to spring from a Nazi POW camp. They have two more accomplices on the island, British agents — one (Babs Olusanmokun) has a cover as a club owner who caters to the criminal element, and the other a very motivated weapons expert (Eiza González) whose main assignment is to seduce and distract the island’s top-ranking Nazi (Til Schweiger).

In the hands of Ritchie, this should be a fun wartime romp, in the vein of “The Dirty Dozen” by way of “Inglourious Basterds.” For some reason – maybe the “based on a true story” label, or the distaste for making comical villains out of Nazis — the action sequences feel labored and listless.

Cavill seems happy to be unshackled from the constraints of Superman, and leans into March-Phillips’ rugged bravado. The other outstanding player here is González, who exudes charm as the deceptively lethal secret agent. Even when the rest of “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is shaky, González is stirring up a lot of trouble. 

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‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, April 19, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong violence throughout and some language. Running time: 120 minutes.