Tag: Film Review

The Fall Guy (2024) | REVIEW

L to R: Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers and Emily Blunt is Judy Moreno in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch — PHOTO: UNIVERSAL PICTURES.

Directed by David Leitch — Screenplay by Drew Pearce.

Apparently relatively loosely based on an ‘80s action-adventure TV series of the same name starring Lee Majors, David Leitch’s The Fall Guy follows a Hollywood stunt performer named Colt Seavers (played by Ryan Gosling), who, after suffering an injury during a high-profile stunt, has left the industry, as well as his camerawoman girlfriend Jody Moreno (played by Emily Blunt), behind. However, when a film producer from his past, Gail (played by Hannah Waddingham), contacts him and tells him that Jody needs him on her feature directorial debut, he rushes back to a movie set in the hopes of rekindling his romance with Jody. When he arrives in Sydney, Australia for production, he finds out that Jody didn’t actually ask for him, but he also learns that Gail needs him to find actor Tom Ryder (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) — i.e. a movie star that Colt is a stunt double for — who has gone missing and whose absence may cause Jody’s first film as a director to be canceled, thus harming Jody’s chances of having a career as a director in the industry. To investigate things and ensure Jody’s film remains in production, Colt will have to put his skills as a stunt performer to good use.

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Challengers (2024) | REVIEW

(L-R) Mike Faist, Zendaya, and Josh O’Connor in Luca Guadagnino’s love triangle tennis film titled CHALLENGERS — PHOTO: Amazon MGM Studios (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Luca Guadagnino — Screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes.

The Palermo-born Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino is fast rising into the ranks of becoming one of my favorite current-day European filmmakers. His transformative and beautiful Call Me By Your Name, of his Desire trilogy, blew me away in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. While I’m not sure I like it more than the film he remade, Guadagnino’s reworking of Suspiria had a vibe and a climax that has made certain chilling images stick with me. Then a couple of years ago, he reteamed with Timothée Chalamet to make a sensational genre-bending cannibalistic romance film, in Bones and All, which is probably more of a cult film than anything that would appeal to a wide audience. His latest film, however, is easily Guadagnino’s most accessible film yet. While I don’t think it’s his best film, it’s easily one of the most entertaining and inventively shot films I’ve seen this year. Challengers is a stylistic, sexy, and sweaty sports love triangle drama that gets the most out of the subgenres it fits in.

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Civil War (2024) | REVIEW

Jesse Plemons looking down at Cailee Spaeny in Alex Garland’s CIVIL WAR — PHOTO: A24 (still image from the trailers).

Directed by Alex Garland — Screenplay by Alex Garland.

I would definitely describe myself as a fairly big fan of writer-director Alex Garland. Although he, as a writer, had already influenced a couple of personal favorite genre films in the early 2000s — specifically Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and Sunshine — I must admit that I didn’t really know who he was until I saw his feature directorial debut titled EX_MACHINA, which is this breathtakingly fascinating and stunning science-fiction masterpiece. After blowing me away with his debut as a director, he cemented himself as a true master of the science-fiction genre with his equally thought-provoking and spellbinding sophomore effort titled ANNIHILATION. Following his sophomore directorial effort, his career trajectory changed slightly as he created, wrote, and directed the underseen but very good FX sci-fi series titled Devs. He then made his third feature as a director, but it, a folk horror film titled Men, didn’t quite receive the warm critical reception that his previous efforts did. Some might think that after the lukewarm reception to his third outing, he would be tempted to make something less button-pushing or with fewer potential pitfalls. Not so. Civil War, his fourth film as a director, is his biggest film yet, and it dares to imagine a world where tensions as a result of dangerous, hateful polarization — perhaps not unlike today — have devolved in such a way that the United States of America has entered into a modern — you guessed it — civil war. Along with the release of his biggest and potentially most controversial film yet, Garland has also suggested that he has fallen out of love with filmmaking and may be stepping down from directing. But if Civil War is evidence of anything for Garland, it is that he is a filmmaker who knows how to craft a fascinating film that can ratchet up the tension and ask interesting questions. 

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Road House (2024) | REVIEW

(L-R) Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor McGregor in ROAD HOUSE (2024) — PHOTO: Amazon MGM Studios / Prime Video (Still image from the trailer).

Directed by Doug Liman (Chaos Walking) — Screenplay by Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry.

Whether its fans liked it or not, for more than ten years, there had been talk of an attempt to remake the Rowdy Herrington 1989 action cult classic Road House starring Patrick Swayze. Now in 2024, it is finally here, as it has been remade for modern audiences by The Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman, whose remake stars Jake Gyllenhaal in the role popularized by Patrick Swayze’s iconic performance — Dalton. Like in the 1989 film, Dalton is hired to be the bouncer at a bar early on in Liman’s film, but there have been significant changes, including the fact that now Dalton has a background in UFC fighting. He doesn’t have the steely focus as a professional bouncer either. Rather we first meet him as he gets ready to scam fighters in an underground circuit. In these opening scenes, Dalton is suicidal and only narrowly survives a suicide attempt early in the film. When he finally gets to the bar that he is supposed to be the bouncer at — a sunny, tropical Florida-set bar called ‘The Road House’ — it doesn’t take long for him to get involved in a fight to get a motorcycle gang off the premises. Soon, a local crime boss (played by Billy Magnussen) tasks the psychotic enforcer Knox (played by Conor McGregor) with taking out Dalton for good.

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Abigail (2024) | REVIEW

(L-R) Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens in ABIGAIL — PHOTO: Bernard Walsh / Universal Pictures.

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett — Screenplay by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick.

Ever since Radio Silence (a filmmaking group that also includes producer Chad Villella) directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett broke through with their sophomore feature, 2019’s Ready or Not, the directing duo has only risen through the ranks when it comes to horror filmmaking. After their bloody wedding horror film in 2019, they were hired to take over from the late, great Wes Craven in the Scream franchise, and they did so with their Scream (2022) and Scream VI. How do you follow up three genuine horror hits in a row? Well, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett decided that they should take on a different kind of horror subgenre that holds a special place in the hearts of horror aficionados with Abigail.

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Ricky Stanicky (2024) | REVIEW

(Left-Right) Zac Efron, Andrew Santino, Jermaine Fowler, and John Cena in RICKY STANICKY — PHOTO: Prime (Still image from the trailer).

Directed by Peter Farrelly — Screenplay by Jeff Bushell, Brian Jarvis, James Lee Freeman, Peter Farrelly, Pete Jones, and Mike Cerrone.

Green Book and The Greatest Beer Run Ever-director Peter Farrelly’s Ricky Stanicky is a comedy about three lifelong friends (played by Zac Efron, Andrew Santino, and Jermaine Fowler) who routinely get out of situations, meetings, life events, responsibilities, and the like, both from family, significant others, and their jobs, by using a created imaginary friend — the titular character (played by John Cena) — and inventing some circumstance that requires their presence, thus justifying their absence from whatever — to them — bothersome scenario gets in their way.

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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) | REVIEW

Godzilla and Kong teaming up in Adam Wingard’s GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Adam Wingard — Screenplay by Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, and Jeremy Slater.

Whether you call them kaiju, titans, or just plain old movie monsters, everyone knows King Kong and Godzilla. They’ve been projected onto the big screen for decades upon decades and yet it was only at the most recent Oscars ceremony that a Godzilla film was awarded with its first prestigious little golden statue. Now that franchise is only three Oscar statues behind Kong, who gained AMPAS recognition long before they finally gave Godzilla its own golden statuette. It was, however, a Japanese Toho production and not an American one, which this film is, that earned an Oscar. Nevertheless, the Oscar indicates that audiences, critics, and industry representatives alike all have an appetite for engrossing monster movies with something to say. At least, that’s what I’m told Godzilla: Minus One, which I have yet to see, is. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire — Minus One’s American cousin — is, however, pretty much just a silly monster movie (though I’m not sure it aspired to be anything else, so I don’t fully mean it is a pejorative). It has plenty of things going for it, but it also made me question what exactly we, or I, want from these kinds of films. 

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‘The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,’ ‘The Burial,’ and More | Bite-Sized Reviews

(Clockwise from top left): The Burial (Amazon Prime Video); Merry Little Batman (Amazon Prime Video); Timeless Heroes: Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford (Disney+); Underverden II (Nordisk Film); The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (Republic Pictures).

For this edition of Additional Bite-Sized Reviews, I have highlighted five films that I saw in the past few months, these include a Danish action-crime sequel, a remake from a filmmaking master, a tribute to a big screen legend, a great animated comic book movie surprise, and, finally, an underseen courtroom drama with some really strong performances from Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones.

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‘Talk To Me,’ ‘The Pope’s Exorcist,’ and More | Bite-Sized Reviews

(Clockwise from top left): The Pope’s Exorcist (Sony Pictures Releasing); Talk To Me (A24); The Crow (Miramax); Sympathy for the Devil (RLJE Films); Totally Killer (Amazon Prime Video).

In the next couple of editions of Additional Bite-Sized Reviews (including this one), these review compilations will consist of my thoughts on certain films or shows that I saw in the last year that I, for some reason, never published full reviews for. Often, I see a bunch of stuff that I write notes for or about on Letterboxd, and I don’t want to miss the opportunity to post those review thoughts here, as I want to share them with you. For this post, I have specifically highlighted five horror-thrillers, including a modern comic book adaptation classic that I finally saw in the past few months.

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Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) | REVIEW

A large number of characters — both new and old — team up, including Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman, to stop a paranormal creature from ending the world in GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE — PHOTO: Sony Pictures Releasing (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Gil Kenan — Screenplay by Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman.

Though not for want of trying, no one has been able to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was Ivan Reitman’s original 1984 Ghostbusters. Since that Saturday Night Live breakout ghostly adult comedy topped box office charts and won over the hearts and minds of many generations, many have tried and failed to make it work once more. This includes Ivan Reitman himself whose 1989 sequel did not reach the same success in part due to a lackluster story, reliance on the same structure of the original, being targeted more towards children, and a botched villain. Decades later, Paul Feig gave it a go with his female reboot also titled Ghostbusters in 2016 and caused uproar from both puritanical fans and misogynistic moviegoers. The film itself was neither particularly good or particularly awful, even though the mass hysteria may get you to imagine otherwise (it’s a hit-or-miss improv session with more misses than hits and a talented cast thrown into the fire of a fandom whose most vocal members were unprepared for even slight changes). It all became so toxic that Sony opted to go down the safe route of having Jason Reitman (yes, Ivan’s son) make a direct sequel to his father’s films with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which relies on the safe and nostalgic formula of modern legacy sequels. The most original aspect of Afterlife, which I mostly really enjoy, was a new setting in the middle of nowhere as opposed to New York City, but it couldn’t resist teasing a sequel of its own that would abandon Afterlife‘s single-most fresh element. Because in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, in which Jason Reitman has returned as a co-writer (while Afterlife co-writer Gil Kenan has taken over the director’s chair), the titular paranormal investigators are back in New York City for a sequel that is just as safe as Afterlife. What holds Frozen Empire back, though, is a supersized cast and its structure.

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